Caree
by CRebel
Summary: "The gown's fabric was thick and dyed crimson, its gold lacing glimmering in the candlelight as she moved. She might have preferred to wear green, but it was her first night in Winterfell, and she must remind these people who she was – a lioness, Lord Tywin's child, his favorite child, against all odds. A Lannister."
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of *Game of Thrones.***

. . . . . . . . . .

This was not the bedchamber Caree had occupied during her betrothal to Robb Stark. It was no less nice, but it was in the Guest House, because she was just a guest at Winterfell now, and not a soon-to-be member of the Stark family.

And being back as just a guest was . . . odd.

Before leaving King's Landing, she could hardly recall a thing about Winterfell. Now that she was here, she couldn't believe she had ever forgotten the castle, the courtyard, the stables. The people. Lord and Lady Stark looked the same. But their children certainly did not. _Robb_ certainly did not.

Nor did she.

There was a mirror in this bedchamber, but it only showed her from the shoulders up. She backed up a bit and rotated, inspecting what she could see of her gown. It was a lovely piece, dipping down in the back, probably farther than most ladies would approve of. But the more skin she showed, the less vulnerable Caree felt. The gown's fabric was thick and dyed crimson, its gold lacing glimmering in the candlelight as she moved. She might have preferred to wear green, but it was her first night in Winterfell, and she must remind these people who she was – a lioness, Lord Tywin's child, his _favorite _child, against all odds. A Lannister_. _

Not a Stark. Never a Stark.

But she wished she had wine. Wine always made her stronger. And judging by the way her hands shook as she put on a ruby necklace, she could do with being a bit stronger. Gods – she had not been nervous leaving King's Landing. Why should she have been? She had been a girl during her time at Winterfell, and now she was a woman, and she had not given Robb Stark any more than the fleeting nostalgic thought since she was fifteen.

Yet her hands shook.

She _wanted wine_. Better yet, she wanted to fuck someone.

There was a knock on the door. "M'lady," came the guard's muffled voice, "It's Ser Jaime Lannister."

Caree banished all anxiety. She would not let Jaime catch a hint of it. "Send him in."

The bolt on the door shifted angrily and Jaime appeared, handsome and dressed as casually as he could get away with. Caree knew he did not think highly of the Starks. "You look lovely," he said, tiredly, as the door closed behind him.

Caree pulled her hair back and began to braid it, a skill she had long ago mastered. She had not had a handmaiden since she was sixteen; she found them to be quite the untrustworthy breed. "Do I?" she said airily. "A shame. I'm thinking of being ill."

"Cersei wouldn't have it."

"Why? Would she miss me so dearly?"

A smile flickered across Jaime's face as he began to take slow steps around the room. "We have to keep up our appearances, don't we?"

"A loving family, bound by blood, loyalty, and affection. Hear us roar. Did she send you? To make sure I show up for the feast and smile and laugh and charm my way back into the hearts of all the Starks?"

"Don't pretend it's such a burden. They loved you once. Make them love you again. Or don't. It hardly matters."

"Then why must I go tonight?"

"Because it's expected." He sighed. "And we live in a world where we must do what is expected of us."

"Or pretend to?" she asked sweetly.

He smirked but didn't answer.

Caree snatched up a golden clasp and closed it over the end of the braid. "I should never have come here in the first place."

"What's this? Is my baby sister showing a stroke of apprehension? Shall I call the maester?"

She forced a laugh. "I'm more bored than apprehensive, I can assure you. I should have gone with Tyrion to the whorehouse."

"I was unaware you took pleasure in such activities," Jaime said, dryly, probably because he would not have been surprised to learn that his youngest sibling enjoyed such recreation.

"I have no interest in being fucked by a whore, sweet brother," Caree said. "They lack certain parts I happen to be very fond of. It's just that I find them to be interesting people. Certainly more interesting than we are. More interesting than we pretend to be, at least . . . Yes, I think I'll be ill." She studied herself in the mirror, mostly to look busy, and brushed back a stray strand of hair. Dark brown. She could almost pass for a full sibling of Jaime and Cersei and Tyrion, were it not for her hair. As a child, she had cried about it on occasion, until Tyrion one day rolled his eyes and told her things could be far worse. From then on, Caree had made a point never to worry about her hair.

Jaime came up behind her. Caree met his eyes in the mirror. They, at least, matched hers.

"You will not be ill," Jaime said, in a gentle voice Caree knew could turn stern in the blink of an eye, "If I can't miss it, you can't miss it. I'll personally flay the skin off of you."

"Oh, I'm so frightened." In spite of herself, she leaned back against him. He wrapped his arm around her obligingly, and for just a moment, and not completely intentionally, she allowed the trepidation within her to steal into her voice. "I fear I really should have stayed at King's Landing."

"Your betrothal to Robb Stark ended four years ago, by no fault of yours." He kissed her forehead. "You're much too pretty for him, anyway."

That made her smile. "You're a good brother," she told him, honestly. "Could I have children, I would name a son after you."

Jaime removed his arm from her shoulders, only to hook his hand onto her elbow. "Come. Time to face the wolves."

Caree dug her fingernails into her palm but lifted her chin. She had come close to being a Stark once but could not be further from one now. It was not a truth she was about to hide from.

In fact, just like the skin on her back, she would flaunt it.


	2. Chapter 2

The King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the Lord and Lady of Winterfell were supposed to be seated on a raised platform at the head of the Great Hall, and they were – at feast's beginning. But by the time the third course was served, King Robert had taken Lord Stark and ushered him into the center of the pulsing banquet. Lord Stark, who had joined his king reluctantly, slipped away after Robert had sufficiently drowned himself in serving girls too blinded by his crown to notice the fat beneath it. Where Lord Stark escaped to then, Caree didn't know, because at that moment Jaime distracted her by leaving their table and forcing her to plead with him.

"Jaime, if you have any affection for me at all, you will _not _leave me here!"

"Don't be such a child. I must have a word with Lord Stark. I'll be back in a moment."

He left her, weaving himself through the tables, every one of them swarmed by the gleeful crowd. Caree watched him go and gulped down wine. This table had been intended only for her and Jaime and Tyrion, but since it was such a large table and so dreadfully empty with just Caree and her eldest brother – Tyrion had yet to show – Jaime had, begrudgingly, allowed the rest of the Kingsguard to dine with them. Caree found every member of the Kingsguard, save her brother, to be unbearably boring, so her evening had so far been spent exchanging wry comments with Jaime. Now she had no one to divert her attention from the incessant noises coming from the table next to hers, the table set aside for the princes and princess . . . and the Stark children. With Jaime gone, Caree could not help but listen to the chatter and laughter of the girls who had almost been her sisters and the boys who had almost been her brothers. As well as the boy who had almost been her husband. His voice had deepened, his laugh was more subdued, but she could still pick out his amidst all the other voices and laughs. The singer, the shouting men, the squealing women – nothing could drown him out.

It all gave her such a headache, which she remedied with more wine, and then more wine still, and after that, when glee had yet to find her, and the ugliest member of the Kingsguard had squeezed her thigh, and the room was hot and much, _much_ too loud, and she had reached the conclusion that Jaime had bloody _lied_, she dropped her cup on the floor. She watched it roll before standing without ceremony and leaving the Great Hall, painting on the same sly smile she had worn when Jaime escorted her in. Eyes followed her, she felt them, and they made her feel powerful. But she did not turn around.

Minutes later, she found herself in the courtyard. The night air washed over her, dove into her, and drew a sigh from her lungs. She liked the crispness of the Northern air. She could get used to it all over again, even as it was here, saddled with the smell of hay and animal dung. She let her eyelids slip down, let her head hang back, and between the still moment and the warm drink in her stomach she almost touched down on peace.

"Sweet sister!"

That yanked her away from it, and she looked to see Tyrion Lannister waddling his way towards her, wineskin in hand. In the shadows created by the moon and the torches glowing behind her, the dark circles under her brother's eyes stood out even more than they might otherwise have. She doubted he had slept much on their journey here. He tilted his head as he neared, brow furrowed. "Surely you're not leaving just as I'm arriving?"

"Be on time for the next feast." She nodded at the wineskin. "It seems you're already feeling quite festive. Did the Northern whores meet your standards?"

"Honestly, I was a bit surprised with the level of skill they exhibited. But needless to say, the surprise was a pleasant one." He moved past her, tipping a bit to the left as he did. "Come. Let us join Jaime so we can all be festive together. I'm sure our good queen sister will join us in spirit."

Caree didn't answer right away; there was now a dull whacking sound, coming from . . . somewhere . . . there. She could see a faint shadow dancing on the wall ahead. "I'll be in in a moment," she lied.

"You're lying."

She didn't turn around. "Drink your wine and be merry, brother."

"Oh, yes, I forgot," he said. "Cersei's wrath can never reach you. It must be nice to have Father's adoration shielding you from the trials of life."

"It is, rather."

"That said, you _would_ benefit from adjusting yourself to the Stark boy's presence now, sweet one."

"I couldn't care less about _the Stark boy's_ presence." She kept her eyes on the dancing shadow. Whatever it was, she suddenly had more fondness for it than Tyrion, whom she normally got on with well enough. He had a way of ruining things for himself.

"Splendid! Seeing as Winterfell is to be our home for at least the next fortnight, and it is not as large a castle as you're used to. You and your former beloved are bound to run into one another more than once."

Her fingers curled to meet her palms. "When you drink, I better understand they who call you _Imp._"

"Careful, Caree," Tyrion warned. "You're dangerously close to only _barely_ being my favorite sister."

She let him have the last word, if only to spare herself the precious minutes they could spend battling over it. She left him in the doorway and made for the dancing shadow, until her own shadow intersected it. Hers was still, but the other writhed in time with the constant _thump thump THUMP, _close now, she whirled to see the shadowcaster. Before her, on the edge of the smithy, a boy beat a straw dummy with a sword.

"Where I'm from," she called, "Men do not attack unarmed enemies."

The boy stopped and turned, revealing a red face, plastered with sweat-soaked strands of hair almost as dark as his eyes. If he was surprised to see her, he didn't show it, and his reply turned to mist in the night. "Where I'm from, old friends greet each with some measure of affection."

_Tell your brother that. _"And are we old friends, Jon Snow?" she asked quietly.

"I had assumed so. Until this afternoon."

She put her smile back on and moved to him. The tip of his sword floated near his boots as she came closer, while his gaze fell to her feet and bounded up just as fast. She said, "I suppose the fact that you're out here, envisioning grandeur –"

"I'm not envisioning grandeur!"

"– means that Lady Stark has yet to grow fond of you?"

"I just spoke to your brother about this. I don't need to go over it again."

"Tyrion? Yes, he has a tendency towards brutal honesty," she said. "I'm not quite as blunt as he is, if it helps."

Jon looked at her and was silent. His expression was not sour, nor skeptical, nor humorous. If anything, there was a drop of sadness to it. That was worse than anything else his stare could have held.

A long moment passed. Even over the cheerful music drifting out faintly from the feast, the howl of a wolf could be heard, oddly close. Caree let it reach the moon, and when it died, she admitted, softly, "I don't know what to say now. Four years ago, I had no trouble talking to you. Other than Robb, you were my favorite Stark."

"I'm not a Stark."

"Well, you should be. I do not have the same mother as my siblings, and yet I'm as much a Lannister."

"You're not a bastard," he said. Bitterly. Yes, he was still bitter. That was not shocking.

"Oh, so my mother and father said some written words the gods have heard millions of times before," she said. "Does that truly so divide my kind from yours?"

"Yes, my lady," Jon said quietly, "It does."

"Don't call me my lady, Jon."

"You are a lady."

"And a man should honor the wishes of a lady," said a new voice. Only the voice was not new, not really. A new voice would not have made Caree's spine stiffen so. She twisted her head around. Robb Stark stood behind her, bathed in torchlight, his own shadow tall behind him. "If she requests we call her by her given name," he said, "we should accommodate her."

His eyes had caught Caree's as soon as they had caught him, and she would not be the one to look away. His face offered no more than she hoped hers did.

Meanwhile, Jon huffed out a breath. "_You_ accommodate her," he said. "I'm going to bed."

Caree heard his sword clatter against the ground. He stalked past her, hunched a bit, fists clenching and unclenching. He did not look back.

"My mother wouldn't allow him to sit with us," Robb said when his brother was gone. "He's upset, is all."

"I don't blame him."

Robb did not reply right away. "I'm sorry if you did not find the feast enjoyable," he eventually said. "I'm sure it cannot compete with the ones at King's Landing."

He spoke so formally, spoke like his father. Was that due to the time that had passed or to the situation they were in? Or to both?

"Forgive me," she said. "I fear I've given you the wrong impression. The feast is delightful. I'm sure the king and queen are very pleased." She still had not faced him fully. It felt awkward, speaking to him over her shoulder, but perhaps it would discourage him. She had not feared meeting him. She had just not wanted to.

But Robb took a step forward now. His voice lowered, as did his eyes. "I fear . . . I failed to welcome you properly."

"Really? I found it to be quite the proper welcome." After Lord Stark had told her it was good to have her back at Winterfell, and Lady Stark had told her she had grown into a lovely lady, Caree had offered her hand to Robb and he had taken it and kissed it so lightly she wasn't sure there had been a kiss at all. Then he had said, all too simply, "Hello, my lady," and she moved on without blinking. What else could she have done?

"Well, yes." Robb shifted his weight. "But it was so proper it was rather . . . improper, don't you think?" He tried at a chuckle. It did not sound happy. Caree could tell he was nervous. His gaze darted this way and that, his words left him fast, and his face was touched with more red than the chill could justify.

So she let all of her body face him. She walked forward until they were as close as she imagined Robb would allow them to be. He was practically a man grown now, after all, not a boy who could afford to be caught breaking rules in a courtyard with a girl. Even her approaching him so suddenly seemed to take him aback. But, oh . . . the thought whittled at her like a knife – what if she could pull him out of this stiffness? Did she want that?

She was impulsive, though, much too impulsive, and her tongue was already working before her mind had reached a decision.

"Well, let's do it over again, then," she challenged. "Say I've just now arrived. What would you do to properly improperly welcome me, Robb Stark?"

Something not unlike fright crashed into his eyes, and Caree thought he might leave her now. _It would be just as well, _she thought. But whatever the emotion was, it passed from his face as quickly as it had come. Robb bent down to her and pressed his cold lips to her cheek before sending a warm whisper onto her neck. "Hello, Caree."

It was like a spell, one that took Caree and pulled her back to age fifteen, to that Winterfell, to that Robb. Feelings she would have sworn were gone – _had _sworn were gone, had _believed _were gone – rushed back into her, more powerful than ever, real, hard to bear – had she really not felt like this in years?

It hurt. But it was also wonderful. She would let the pain have its time, but this moment she would give to the glow he had sparked in her heart when he said her name. She took his head in her hands and guided it until his forehead was pressed to hers, and a genuine grin found her lips. They were breaking rules, certainly, but Robb did not pull away. "That's more bloody like it, you damn fool," she said.

He laughed, and this time it was not so subdued.


	3. Chapter 3

He took her to the rookery. She didn't suggest it. He must have remembered she liked it there. She stood amidst the cages now, letting one of the birds nibble her finger while she looked out at the castle walls and beyond. The night sky was clear and perfect, a dark blanket she wanted to steal from the gods and wrap up in forever. The forest below it reached high, as if to help her in her thievery. "It must be a sight to behold in the snow."

"I can remember it. It is." Robb came up beside her. He rested his hand next to hers on the windowsill.

"I saw snows in the South, last winter. But I was just a girl, and the Northern snows are undoubtedly much more impressive."

"You'll have to visit Winterfell again," Robb said. "When they come."

Something inside of her twisted painfully but she only showed Robb a smile. "Winter's a dangerous time to travel." She pushed away from the window, walking down the line of cages, peering out each window she passed. The windows were why she liked this place so much – so many windows, all with the same gorgeous view. There was also the fact that, up here with the birds and all their shit, few people were likely to bother her. "Is Old Nan still alive?"

"You're so sure she can die?"

She trailed a finger along a cage that held a particularly nasty looking raven, huge and missing an eye. It squawked ominously at her. "I would like to see her tomorrow. And I would like to talk more with your brothers and sisters. I can't believe how much Rickon has grown. And Bran." She poked her finger a little deeper into the cage. The raven snapped at it, but she pulled away just in time and moved on. "Do they even remember me?"

"Bran does," Robb said, following her as she moved along. "Rickon says he does."

"Well, he and I will have to get reacquainted. Sweet boy. And Sansa's beautiful, of course. And Arya is . . ."

"Arya?" Robb offered.

She twirled, catching his eyes briefly – they were sparkling. "And she's doing a _fantastic_ job of it."

"She would be glad to hear you say that."

Caree had reached the far side of the rookery and she once again chose a window to stand at. She put her head out and let the breeze cool her flushed face, and when she pulled it back in, Robb Stark was beside her once more. "I didn't realize how much I missed it here," she confessed. "But now that I'm back, thinking of leaving again makes me hurt." It was only after hearing it aloud that she realized it was true, and that scared her.

The wind picked up, and the ravens cawed, but Caree and Robb were silent.

"How long have you been at King's Landing?" Robb finally asked.

"Seven months," she said. "Father didn't want it. I had to get Jaime on my side before he would approve. My sister still doesn't approve. But she loves Jaime and Jaime loves me."

"Your sister doesn't know what she's missing."

"Robb Stark, you're talking about your _queen_." She gave him the most serious face she could find and they both burst out laughing. Good. Laughing was easier than having serious conversation.

And yet, when they'd calmed, serious conversation called to Caree again, tempted her, and she was caught in it again. It was not like her. Not like who she had become after leaving Winterfell. But Robb did not know that Caree.

"Really, though," she said, "I like it there, at the capital, for the most part. I needed a change of pace . . . And I should probably get used to moving around." She rested on her elbows. "There's no settling down for a barren noblewoman, you know." She clasped her hands and stared at them. "But of course, you do."

With that, she drove him to silence once more. It wasn't a bad silence, really. Caree did not know this Robb any more than Robb knew this Caree, but she was a fast learner. This Robb, he was the kind to think carefully before he spoke. The world needed more men like that.

Maybe he wasn't practically a man grown, as she had thought. Maybe he was simply a man. She was certainly a woman, after all.

When the eldest Stark child spoke again, his voice was low and strong. It was not the voice of a boy. "It was foul, our betrothal ending like it did . . . I'm sure you would have made a wonderful wife, Caree."

Her hands, still holding tightly to one another, had gone so pale they practically shone in the moonlight. She separated them and the dark flowed in. She gazed up at Robb, being so serious again. His eyes made her want to hold him.

She straightened. Her eyebrows rose in a painted image of surprise. "Are you?" she asked, just as she passed him by. "I'm not . . . You should get some sleep, my friend. There's to be a hunt in the morning, and you don't want to be tired for that. Or for when you take me to the godswood upon your return. If I recall it correctly, the one at King's Landing is a poor competitor."

She scolded herself as she descended the stairs. The godswood, of all places? That was a direct invitation to trouble. _What is it that I want? Do_ _I know?_

Her hand brushed over her belly.

The courtyard was scattered with people, most of them couples and drunks. The music from the feast went on, but it was considerably quieter, and people were steadily dripping out from the Great Hall. Still, when Caree paused by the entrance, she heard her brother-in-law's booming laugh. She wondered if Cersei would let the Starks see her leave without him.

She found her way back to her bedchamber easily enough. The guard outside of her door ducked his head, said _m'lady, _and she entered her bedchambers and slammed the door and dug into it with her fingernails. Slowly, slowly, the isolation soothed her.

She turned around and looked for the wine that wasn't there. "Damn." She reached back and freed her hair, pulling her hand through the braid, letting the tangles cover her shoulders. She lit one candle but blew it out. She wanted to sleep. But just as she was undoing the ties on her dress, she found herself staring at the bed, so big and empty. She did not like empty beds.

She went to the door and opened it. The guard ducked his head again. When she only stood there, he asked, "M'lady?"

He wasn't bad looking. Tall, with sharp cheekbones and grey eyes. A bit old for her, at least Jaime's age, but she'd had older. "What's your name?"

"M'lady?" he repeated.

"Your name."

He blinked down at her. "Balter, m'lady. Ren Balter."

She nodded. "I don't feel safe with you all the way out here, Ren Balter." She reached out and grazed a finger along his chest, down his belly, past his belt. She felt him tense. "Come into my chamber. You'll be of much greater use in there, I promise."

"M'lady, I . . ." Ren's eyes followed her hand as if it might bite him.

"Ren, you have two choices here," she said, hand circling between his legs. "Don't fuck Caree Lannister, or –" she grasped him and he gasped. "Fuck Caree Lannister. Tell me, which story would you rather tell your grandsons one day?"

He was in her bed the next minute. He was bumbling and predictable. But he was better than nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

The hunting party left the next morning and Bran Stark fell from the castle walls minutes after.

Caree heard about it only when the party rode back into the courtyard, as she was on her way to the kitchens for a late, scrounged breakfast. The mass of horses and red-faced riders came pounding in, startling her, Lord Stark at the head. He jumped to the ground before his horse had halted and left the animal before a servant could take it in hand. He passed Caree without a word, without sparing her a glance, but all she had to do was look at him to know that something very bad had happened.

The courtyard quickly melted into chaos, too full of horses and too empty of hands, and Caree herself ended up grasping the reins of a stallion, trying to coax him calm as his eyes rolled and his hooves stomped. Naturally, it was during this battle of wills that she caught sight of Robb, wearing a heavy cloak on his shoulders, entering the castle through the same door his father had. She yanked at the horse and called Robb's name. He glanced over and stopped, briefly, when he saw it was her, but he wore a dazed look and walked on without so much as a nod. Caree's chest grew thick with dread. A stable boy appeared and she numbly handed him the stallion and backed away from the dying disarray of people and beasts until she bumped into someone. She whirled and found herself staring into the destroyed face of Sandor Clegane – The Hound. His scars always looked worse in the morning, she would swear to it.

"What happened?" she snapped, and he gazed down at her indifferently – no, not indifferently, damn him. With a hint of amusement. But it was Prince Joffrey who answered, stepping up from behind the tall man, wearing his characteristic smirk.

"Have you not heard, Aunt?" he asked. "One of the Stark boys fell to his death not an hour ago!"

"What?" Her voice was lost in the noise.

"Climbing the walls like some sort of animal!" Joffrey snorted, looking around the yard like he had fallen into a hog pen. "Though I suppose such behavior is not surprising in the North."

Caree's mouth had gone dry. "Which boy?"

"You must thank the gods every day that you escaped this place –"

_"Which boy?" _

Her nephew drew back as if she had bitten him. "Why would _you_ care?"

"Possibly because she spent almost a year living as part of this family." Tyrion. He had come to her side as the courtyard quietened and was now taking her hand. She found she was grateful for it. "It was Brandon," he said to her.

"Bran," she automatically corrected. They never called him Brandon.

"Bran," Tyrion agreed.

"And he's dead?" Sweet Bran, who at six years old had cried and held her when his brothers weren't looking, when he understood that she was leaving and not coming back . . .

"No one said that," Tyrion assured her. "Not to my knowledge."

"No," scoffed Joffrey, "all the messenger said is that he fell from the top of the castle. People survive that all the time."

Caree's head rotated slowly back towards her nephew. He was three years younger than she, and yet she could not look at him without seeing a brat of a child more spoiled than even she had been. Hot anger stirred within her. "Hound," she said, in an oddly steady tone, "Get your charge away from me before I break his nose."

Joffrey's grin dropped from his face with almost comical speed. "How dare you threaten me?"

Caree met the Hound's eyes. "Clegane," she said, still calm. Tyrion released her hand.

"He does not take orders from you!" Joffrey was appalled, on the edge of a fit. It was too much.

Caree stepped forward and swung. Her fist was inches from the prince's nose when the Hound caught her wrist and wrenched it, yanking her close enough for her to smell his wine-soaked breath. "You should have someone teach you to hit, girl," he rasped. "That was almost painful to watch."

"In typical situations, my eldest brother does all my fighting for me, and if you leave a bruise on me, dog, he will be the first one to see it."

The Hound chuckled and tightened his grip, so hard she felt as if the bone might snap – but then he released her. She moved out of his reach, resisting the urge to rub her forearm.

"Let that be a lesson to you, Aunt," Joffrey said, but his voice cracked. Caree had threatened to strike him before – at fairly regular intervals, since she returned from Winterfell to find him unbearable – but this was the first time, since childhood, that she had actually attempted it. Now she narrowed her eyes at him and spoke softly.

"Oh, be careful, sweetling. You're not king yet, and I hold more power than you might think."

She whirled and swept from the courtyard, just as the tears rushed to her eyes. When she had gotten indoors and into a long, empty corridor, she slowed, and was only then aware of footsteps behind her. She saw that it was Tyrion and stopped to let him catch up. "That really was a pathetic attempt at causing bodily harm," he said once he had. "I must say, it is nice to find someone worse at it than I." The first tear slipped from his sister's eye as he spoke, and it pulled a sigh from him. "My dear sister. You never know what the gods have in store."

"I know the gods have an unfortunate tendency to be very, very cruel." A servant girl passed. Caree fell silent out of habit, but when the girl and her footsteps were gone, she said, "I need to find Robb."

It was a comment to herself more than Tyrion, but it was he who answered. "Robb will be with his brother. Or as near to him as possible. Though I am glad to know you have made your peace with him."

"We were never –" But it wasn't worth arguing about, not right now. "I need to tell him –"

"What? How sorry you are? I'm sure he knows. Now dry your tears. They do you no justice." She obeyed, dabbing her face with her sleeves. "You should go to your bedchamber and lie down," Tyrion said.

"I don't want to lie down."

"Then go to your bedchamber and drink."

Her arms fell to her sides. "There's no wine in there."

"Then go to _my_ bedchamber and drink. Or do whatever it is you need to do to calm yourself until we know more." He took her hand again, this time with both of his. He gazed kindly up at her, and the whole thing felt . . . strange. It did not feel _bad_ – it was only that, when she had been a child, it was always Jaime whom Caree ran to for comfort, never Tyrion. But Tyrion was the one patting her hand now. "I'll come with news as soon as I hear it."

She did not go to his bedchamber, or to her own. Without really making a decision to do so, she returned to the rookery and sat on a stool and spent the rest of the morning staring at the castle, wondering where Bran had fallen from and watching the people below. She hated them for going about their day as if nothing had happened. From somewhere close came the howling of dogs.

The first time she had ever seen Bran climbing, ten days after her arrival in Winterfell, she had bolted to the nearest guard and told him in a panic about how this mere boy of six was scaling the walls as if it were a game. The guard had laughed and said he would inform Lady Stark if she wished, but not to worry; this was hardly a new pastime for Bran. He had been climbing before he was walking, the guard said. Later, at supper, Caree had worked up the nerve – she was so shy back then, wasn't she? – to tell Bran she had seen him. He had grinned and told her she was welcome to join him next time, and Theon Greyjoy then clapped Robb on the shoulder and told him his younger brother was doing a far better job than he of charming Caree. Robb had blushed, but Caree had laughed, and that was the first time she had felt anything close to comfortable at Winterfell.

"You really should think of a new hiding spot."

Caree sighed at his voice but did not answer.

"Even as a child, whenever you were upset, you would run to the rookery. At least when you were at King's Landing." Jaime strolled through the cages, a man with all the time in the world. Caree watched him out of the corner of her eye. "I can only imagine what you put Father through at Casterly Rock."

From her seventh nameday to her fourteenth – the year she had come to Winterfell – Caree divided her time between Casterly Rock and King's Landing, half a year in one place and half a year in the other. Her father knew that the capital was the ideal location for a young lady of noble blood to grow up, but was unwilling to send her away on a permanent basis. So, Caree had been traded back and forth. She never really minded. Seeing Jaime again was always the best part of returning to King's Landing. He would swing her up into his arms and tell her how he had been on the verge of riding to Casterly Rock and demanding that Father give her back to him. Caree had found it so funny, because who could demand anything of Father?

Jaime was now at her side. Caree kept her eyes out the window, thinking it was fitting that the sky above was so chillingly grey. "Come, you should eat something," Jaime said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Sweet girl, I know it's an awful thing, but starving yourself won't do anyone any good."

"I'm not starving myself," she said. "I'm simply not hungry."

"Come now, Caree, it's not as if the boy was family."

Now she looked at him, working hard to keep her expression neutral. "'Was?'"

Jaime started to answer but stopped. He gave her an apologetic look before continuing, tenderly, "I'm told he fell from the window of that horrid broken tower." He shook his head, golden hair falling into his eyes. "That's not a fall to be survived, love."

The broken tower had been struck by lightning over a century before, and it had burned and crumbled and for whatever reason never been rebuilt. But it was tall. Too tall. Caree turned from her brother again. "You sound like your nephew," she said. "The taller one, with the smart mouth." She stood. He had ruined the rookery for her. She did not meet his eyes when she walked past him.

"Where are you going?"

"To the sept. Or to Tyrion's bedchamber to drink. I've not yet decided."

"You don't pray."

"No? Then I suppose I've decided."

"Caree."

His tone demanded her attention, so she gave it to him, albeit with a scowl. "It's true, what I said," he told her. "The boy is not your family. None of the Starks are. _I_ am your family. Cersei, Tyrion, the children, Father." His eyes bore into her, and Caree's frustration and sorrow constricted into something fearful. "We're your family."

Why was he saying this? Why was he giving her that look, so unusually earnest?

"Darling, in the days to come," he said softly, glancing away, "I may need you to do something for me."

"What?"

"Remember where your loyalties lie." He came up to her and clasped her face. "And _eat_ something."

Caree listened to him leave, unsure if she wanted to follow. The dread she had felt all morning was inside of her still, and heavier than ever.


	5. Chapter 5

"Your feet aren't right," Theon Greyjoy said over Caree's shoulder. The snigger in his tone dug under her skin and gnawed at her bones.

"My feet are fine." She pulled her bowstring back a bit more. The brutal tension all throughout the string and the wood matched how her muscles felt. She released. The bow vibrated in her hands, alive and free, and her arrow slammed into the target, directly next to the one Theon had sent from his bow a moment earlier. His had found the target's center; hers had missed it by three inches. On top of that, no matter how relaxed the bow felt now, her muscles were tighter than ever.

"Told you to fix your feet," Theon taunted.

"My feetwere _fine_." She turned to him. "I just haven't done this in a while." Theon's expression was as full of arrogance as his voice. The orange light from the evening sun settled in his hair, giving him the closest thing to a crown the son of a failed rebel could ever have. She had found him here, in the corner of the courtyard, testing the skills she would have said he had mastered years ago. She had asked after Bran, but Theon offered no new information about him – a night and a day had passed, and yet the boy remained the same. With no desire to return to her cold bedchamber, Caree had found a smaller bow, and she and Theon wordlessly entered into contest. He was better than her, she could not deny it. But she truly was out of practice: Archery had been a dear hobby of hers as a child, but her fondness for it had diminished with age. Nevertheless, her ability remained impressive. "And look," she told Theon, gesturing at the target. "My shot is true enough to kill a man."

"Won't pierce his eye," he said.

"Why should I pierce his eye," she replied lazily, "when I can pierce his chest?"

"People can survive an arrow to the chest," a child's voice said. "They can't survive an arrow to the eye." Caree turned, and there was Arya Stark, squinting at her with arms crossed over a barrel. Caree edged on panic, before reminding herself that Arya would not be out here if something bad had happened with Bran. If anything, she would be out here if he had taken a turn for the better.

"Well," she told the girl, "It would depend on the archer, wouldn't it? A well-placed arrow to the heart will bring down any man, but an arrow shot quite, quite poorly _could_ spare a man's brains, and his life, while piercing his eye." She had once seen a man at court with a patch over his eye, and when she had whispered to Jaime about it, he told her that a green soldier had attempted to slash the man's throat, missed, and sliced his eye instead. Caree, though thoroughly unexperienced in battle, saw no reason why a similar incident could not occur with an arrow.

Arya, however, did not seem convinced. "Still," she insisted with a shrug, "If you're a good enough shot, I don't see why you shouldn't aim for the eye."

"Well, unfortunately," Theon said, sneering at Caree as he nocked another arrow. "It seems that the lady is _not_ a good enough shot."

She gave him an icy glare, though in all honesty, bickering with Theon was a bit of a comfort at the moment. It brought with it a dim familiarity that was better than the lonely, unknown waters she had navigated during the previous days. "Perhaps I should shoot an arrow at _your _chest," she said, "And we shall see whether or not my shot proves good enough."

"I don't think my father would like that."

Robb. He had sneaked up on her again, just like the night of the feast. There he stood, along with Jon Snow, right behind Arya. The clothes of both boys were disheveled, and judging from their dull eyes, they were in need of a good night's sleep. An unnatural silence fell upon the courtyard as their presence was registered by everyone there. Not a soul spoke a word, and those who had not stopped moving altogether moved slower, creeping about their business with wary eyes on their lords. The smithy had halted his work to watch the scene unfold, steam spiraling up behind him. Even the horses and dogs went quiet. Jon's eyes slid around at the change, but Robb only cracked the stillness with a mild manner, as if he had not recognized its existence. "Caree," he said over Arya's head, "Would you walk with me?"

And now, after waiting so long and wanting so much to speak with him, she found she was afraid to. And yet she agreed, handed her bow to Theon, and walked with the heir to Winterfell.

"You asked me to take you to the godswood," he said as they left the others and passed the silent smallfolk. "I didn't want to disappoint you."

"Bran?" She could not help but ask.

"There's been no change," Robb said curtly. Just as they were about to leave the courtyard, a silver flash blew by Caree's feet, nearly tripping her. Her gaze followed it, but not far; it slowed next to Robb and revealed itself to be a dog, one that was watching her with sharp yellow eyes. Although it did not look like any dog she had ever seen . . .

"Is that a wolf?" she asked, unable to disguise her incredulity.

"A direwolf."

She was looking at Robb, thinking that only the Starks would allow a direwolf to be kept as a pet, when a deep rumble came from below. Her eyes dropped to the creature in time to see it bare its teeth and break stride with Robb to snap at Caree's hand. She jerked her arm away just in time. "Grey Wind! No!" barked Robb before the wolf could try again. His eyes were wide, but his voice commanding, and the wolf lowered itself and slunk away, though its eyes held onto Caree for as long as they could. She would have sworn they bore a nearly-human resentment. "I'm sorry," Robb said. "He's never done anything like that before."

Caree flexed the hand that had nearly lost a finger, eyeing the retreating animal with a queasy feeling.

They continued on. It was a short walk to the godswood. A worn trail tugged them away from the castle and into the forest, where the noises of civilization could not reach and Robb and Caree were truly alone. And yet he spoke no more, and Caree did not push him, only cursed herself for being so impulsive the night of the feast, when they had hidden away in the rookery. She had requested he take her to the godswood on a whim, but of course he felt bound to oblige her, even now, as tragedy loomed over his family. It was in his nature. _It must be exhausting, _she thought, _to have such a compulsion to behave nobly._

The godswood unfolded before them like a picture in a fairy story, stealing Caree's breath and sending a wave of peace through her, against her will. The unforgiving soil of the trail gave way to spongy grass, and she fought the urge to remove her shoes as she walked to the shining pool under the great white weirwood. The roots bumped up under her feet, and her fingers fluttered over the tree's smooth bark before she stopped to stare in the water, trying to see past her reflection to the grand secrets she had always felt might reside in the pool's depths. Yes, she had remembered correctly. This godswood was far better than the one at King's Landing, far better than the one at Casterly Rock. Those had been built for tradition and hospitality. This one had been built for the house, for the family, and had stood with them both through all of their ages. This godswood felt like a home for the gods. "It's as beautiful as ever," she said as Robb's reflection joined hers. She met his likeness's eyes. "You're very kind to have brought me here."

"I would have brought you earlier," he said quietly. "Only I did not want to disturb my father. He spent much of yesterday and today here."

"Of course he did." She hesitated, struggling to find the right words. "I do not pray. But if I did, I would be praying for Bran." That was a failed attempt, an utterly pointless and silly thing to say, and she ducked her head and battled the blush threatening her cheeks. Robb's reflection left the pool. She thought he was going, but heard no movement, and when she peeked over her shoulder she saw that he stood just behind her, gazing listlessly at the weirwood.

"I haven't prayed for him," he confided. "It seems too late to pray."

He was much too restrained. Her hands were stiff at his sides and his face was stone. It frightened her, as did his words. "Don't say that."

"Why shouldn't I?" The look he gave her dared her to give an answer, but she had none. "Clearly the gods don't care what I want. What kind of gods would allow such a thing to happen to a child of ten?"

She had no answer for that, either, so she only gave the first truth that came to mind. "You're asking the wrong person. As I said, I do not pray. Not to the Seven, certainly not to the old gods." There was a face carved into the weirwood, a practice typical for the so-called heart trees of godswoods, and the dried sap in its crevices gave it red eyes to glare at her disapprovingly.

Robb thought for a while. "You used to pray. You would go with my mother to the sept."

"Yes." The sept here was small, built only for Lady Stark's sake, but it had a simplistic appeal hanging about it and songs echoed within it as if it were larger.

"When did you stop, then?" Robb asked, still disturbingly muted. Caree untwisted herself, showing him her back, and gazed into the pool again. Her reflection gazed sadly back up at her before she forced it to harden. What had Tyrion said? _Dry your tears. They do you no justice. _

Her voice was steady when she answered Robb. "You know when."

She felt his hand on her arm, and before she could even decide whether or not she wanted it there, Robb had pulled her around and cupped her face and kissed her, just like he had when they were children, right in this godswood, for the very first time.

She broke away, but only from his mouth, not his arms. "Robb –"

"I should have married you," he whispered, so close to her, his face pained. "I should never have allowed our betrothal to be broken."

"You're the heir to Winterfell." She moved her hands up, intending to pull his down, but they ended up only resting in the crooks of his arms. He had made her weak. She hated feeling weak. "You must have children . . . You must carry on the bloodline . . ."

She knew even as she spoke that she did not sound nearly as adamant as she needed to, and Robb's hands slid around to the back of her neck. "Bran could have carried on the bloodline." He put her forehead to hers, just as she had put hers to his two nights before. "He still _can_ –"

"Robb." He was being foolish. Such an arrangement would never have been allowed, and to even bring it up now was absurd. And whether he wanted to believe it or not, even Robb himself would grow unhappy as the years came and went and he and his barren wife grew old in a silent house.

Still, he held her tighter, making everything so much more difficult. "I –" He sighed. It was a desperate sound, and she knew, with a falling feeling, what he would say next. "I . . . I _deflowered_ you."

She laughed without cheer. She could not help herself. Finally she managed to push Robb's arms down, and she spun away from him, finding a new strength in his ludicrous reasoning. "You Starks. Always so concerned with your honor."

"It is not just about honor!" he said, almost indignantly.

"No, you're right." She faced him again, but kept her distance. The sun was setting, the forest filling with shadows ready to swallow both of them up. "It's also about Bran. You're upset over your brother and you want to feel better, so you kiss me. So you bring up our betrothal. You bring up bedding me. And you imagine you still have these feelings for me, these feelings you had when you were more of a boy and less of a man –"

"And you?" His breaths came heavy, his eyebrows knit together. "You have no feelings left for me?"

Looking at him, seeing him so helpless, even desperate, Caree realized with a gentle sorrow that he and she were in two very different places. He did not understand her. Maybe he would not be able to. But not for her lack of trying. "Robb, four years ago, your maester told me that I would never be able to bear children. You know what that means in our world. I will never be able to marry a suitable man. I could not have his son, and no suitable man wants a wife who cannot give him a son."

"You assume you know me," Robb spat.

"I know you are a suitable man," she replied sadly.

He looked at the ground for a long time. "You did not answer my question."

"What question?" She wanted to leave. She had ordered wine be brought to her bedchamber, and she had enough confidence in her abilities to believe she could drain the entire flagon before night's end. And she was sure Ren would not protest another romp in her bed.

But Robb was looking at her so intently, even more so than Jaime had in the rookery the day before. "I asked if you had no feelings left for me."

Slowly, slowly, she shook her head. She did not want to look at him when she answered, but she made herself. He deserved that much. "They're not the right feelings, Robb. Since the day Maester Luwin told me what he told me, I have felt for no man what you claim to feel for me." It was not entirely true, but it was true enough. Whatever she did feel for Robb, whatever joy she had taken from his touch, from his kiss – it was a remnant of another time. Feeling something at all was lovely. But she was smart enough to know that what Robb roused within her was the now-stale adoration she had borne for him as a girl. It was not the love of a woman for a man. She had renounced loving anyone like that, especially Robb Stark, long ago.

"I don't believe you," Robb said.

"Don't misunderstand me. I'm speaking loosely. I do feel some things – the warmth of fond memories, and friendship, for example." She took a deep breath, trying to soothe her quivering body. "I will always be your friend, Robb."

He had turned away by then. "Do not patronize me," he said bitterly.

Could he truly not see that this made her miserable as well? "I'm trying to say something that will make you happy."

_"Nothing _will make me happy!" Caree's body went rigid. His shout rang so loud that she could hear the night creatures scurrying off, and the leaves of the great weirwood stirred as if shaken from sleep. "My brother could be on his deathbed and the woman I love does not want me!"

"You do not love me!" She could not resist the instinct to raise her own voice. "You do not _know_ me, Robb Stark! You know the wide-eyed girl who believed her place in the world was to be here, as the lady of Winterfell, maintaining the household and having your children! That is not who I am anymore!" She inhaled, the air coming to her in an uneven pattern. "You do not know me . . ."

He shook his head at her, and it sent her heart to her stomach, because she knew in that moment that there was only one thing left for her to say to this man-child, who held his pride so dear, if she hoped to kill this madness in his heart. She swallowed. "You did not even deflower me, you fool."

The words sank into him like pebbles dropped into the sea, floating gently down and down into the blue of his eyes before finally hitting bottom, and then it happened – the shock, the confusion. The hurt. It engulfed him, he tried to fight it off, but it had already stained him, and she had the perfect view of his transformation just as the last slice of day slipped away and they were in darkness.

"You should have someone explain to you what happens when you take a girl's maidenhead," she said. "A lord should know such things."

They had come to the godswood together. They each left alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Caree imagined breaking her fast beside her family could be quite enjoyable – had her family not included her sister. Unfortunately, it did, and even with Myrcella in between them, and the warm sun spilling graciously across the table, the chill of Cersei's presence prickled at Caree's skin, colder than any Northern breeze she had felt so far.

"There are only men at the wall," Myrcella was saying. "You'll be the only woman for miles and miles."

"I can think of worse fates." Caree glanced across the spread, looking for appreciation – and warmth – from Jaime, but he responded with a dry look. She sighed. Where was Tyrion? He appreciated her humor, and anyway, the morning room of the Guest House was far too large for three adults and two children, and Tyrion had quite the way of filling up a room.

Myrcella tore her bread into pieces, not bothering to hide her gloom. "I wish I could go to the Wall."

"No, my love." Cersei regarded Caree over her daughter's head. "Proper ladies do not waste their time on such pointless endeavors."

Caree grinned wryly into her wine cup. They were not even through breakfast, and she had already earned a fresh bout of her sister's disapproval. But, after today, Caree and Cersei would not meet for months – perhaps the queen was trying to squeeze in as much blatant dislike as she could before they went their separate ways.

"Bread!"

Tyrion had entered the room. He made his way to his family, calling out his order to no servant in particular. "And some of those little fish . . . and a mug of dark beer to wash it down!" He climbed the platform to the table and added, "And bacon – burnt black," as he took hold of Tommen and made a show of moving him over on the bench, grunting and groaning. The boy giggled, and Tyrion sat in the space he had created, grinning back at his nephew.

"Little brother," Jaime said.

"Beloved siblings." He reached past Tommen to grab a platter with a single strip of meat left on it. Caree smiled. Tyrion had no problem being patient, but why bother when there was no need?

Myrcella let the remaining chunk of bread fall to her plate. "Is Bran going to die?" she asked her uncle. At ten years old, she had already arrived at the conclusion that if anyone in her family knew what was happening around them, it was Tyrion.

"Apparently not," the dwarf answered, his mouth full, and he met Caree's eyes. She gave a little nod. She had already heard the same report from Ren Balter the night before. But it was news to Myrcella and the girl grinned ear-to-ear. Her mother, however, remained stoic.

"What do you mean?" she asked as Caree took a bite of bacon.

"Maester says the boy may live."

Caree's eyes slid back up to Tyrion, whose eyes were on Cersei, whose eyes were on Jaime. Jaime looked back at his twin. Discomfort twisted its way through Caree. Something was off. But she could not put her finger on what. "It's no mercy letting a child linger in such pain," said her sister.

"What are you suggesting they do?" Caree resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Press a pillow over his head until he stops struggling? And anyway, you don't know he's in any great pain."

"He fell from a window," Cersei said deliberately, not sparing her sister a glance. "I'm venturing a guess."

"Only the gods know anything for certain," Tyrion interrupted. "All the rest of us can do is pray." Neither sister replied. Caree dropped her eyes to the half-eaten meal she no longer had an appetite for and shortly after heard Tyrion continue, "The charms of the North seem entirely lost on you," and knew it was not she he was addressing.

"I still can't believe you're going," Cersei said. No one had to ask where. "Caree is an imprudent child, but you should know better. It's ridiculous, even for you."

"I would like to point out that I am not a child," Caree said, taking a page from Myrcella's book and ripping a piece of bacon in two, "while allowing that the other half of that accusation is debatable."

Jaime's lips twitched, but her other two siblings were too busy eyeing one another. "Come, Cersei, where's your sense of wonder?" Tyrion demanded. "The greatest structure ever built! The intrepid men of the Night's Watch!"

_Jon Snow among them – almost._

Tyrion turned to Tommen. "The wintry abode of the _White Walkers_ . . ." he growled, hands coming out in mock menace, and Tommen laughed and squirmed away. Cersei's children loved Tyrion a remarkable amount more than Cersei did.

"Tell me you're not thinking of taking the black." Jaime propped his boot on Tyrion's seat.

"And go celibate?" Tyrion feigned shock. "The whores would go begging from Dorne to Casterly Rock! No, I just want to stand on top of the Wall and piss off the edge of the world."

"That part of things is going to prove very difficult for me," Caree quipped.

Myrcella and Tommen were in a fit of giggles by then, and the queen stood. "Children don't need to hear such filth. Come." She swept out of the room, the two youngest Baratheons at her heels, biting back their smiles.

"Such a charmer, our sister," Caree said when they were gone.

"Caree," warned Jaime, only half in jest, "be nice."

Caree frowned at him. "She started it." She pushed away her plate and rose herself. "She always starts it. I'm going to go finish packing."

"Keep it light," Tyrion called after her. "And if you happen to own a gown with a back, do bring it."

Ren Balter was on guard when she arrived at her bedchamber. He seemed to sprout a couple of inches taller upon seeing her approach. "My lady," he said, almost self-importantly. "I would like to say –"

"Please don't, Ren." Caree opened her door.

She had thrown him. "My – my lady –"

Gods, she hated it when they did this. She should have known better than to use the same man more than once, convenience be damned. "Ren," she told the ceiling, "I doubt anyone will come to attack me now. Please, go. Do whatever it is your type does when you aren't protecting my type. But first, please find someone to carry down the bags I'm not taking to the Wall." She closed the door, and that was the end of her relationship with Ren Balter.

The courtyard was a mess. Not only were Caree and Jon and Tyrion headed north with Benjen Stark, but the king's party was going south to King's Landing, and they were to be accompanied by Lord Stark – he had accepted the king's request to be the new Hand – as well as a good portion of the Stark household guard. Caree made her way through the shifting crowd, envisioning the sweet isolation she hoped to find at the Wall, and when she finally reached the entryway of the stables she nearly marched past her mare, saddled and tethered to a pole. She halted and turned so fast her braid smacked her arm. Robb Stark stood at the horse's side, looking twice his size in a fur-lined cloak. He must have been shaved for the arrival of the queen, for a beard now shadowed his face and aged him a few years. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wanted to have a look at her before you left. One of the stable boys told me she's the most beautiful horse he's ever seen. I think he had it right."

Caree had brought the mare, Willow, to the capital from Casterly Rock. She had a shimmering dark coat, strong legs, and clear, bright eyes, but Caree had seen horses far more beautiful, horses that were such perfect images of power and grace that they had made her want to cry. But she thanked Robb anyway. Then she did not know what more to say. She had not spoken to him since that night in the godswood, had in fact gone to great lengths to avoid him, keeping camp in the library for the grand majority of her stay following the incident. But there was no avoiding him now. And she would not show fear, not of any kind. She cleared her throat. "I'll do my best to watch over Jon, during my stay at the Wall. I'll keep him out of trouble."

Robb smiled ruefully. "I worry more for you than Jon."

She tried to smile back, even as their mutual discomfort thickened the air between them. "Will you be sure to send a raven to me . . . when Bran wakes?"

"We'll send word to Jon at the Wall."

Caree nodded, and the pair stood in silence for too long before she began strapping her bag onto the saddle. "I was happy to have seen you again, Robb."

She had not intended for it sound like a dismissal, but it did. Robb hesitated. "Have a safe journey, Caree," he said before too long, and he walked away. Caree let her head drop against the horse. She was already drained. How was she going to make it all the way to the Wall?

Then she heard, "Will you stop at Winterfell again on your way back to King's Landing?" She lifted her head and followed the voice. Robb had stopped a few paces away and now awaited an answer.

"I don't know," she said.

He considered that. "You would be welcome if you did."

"Would I?"

"Of course." He turned and faded into the crowd before she could say another word. She watched him go, thinking that if they did not stop on their return trip, this could be the last time she saw him for years to come.

"I thought I said you were too pretty for him?" Jaime had appeared next to her, looking all the part in his white cloak of the Kingsguard. Caree pulled her eyes from Robb.

"We were just saying goodbye. We're still friends, or . . . something." The courtyard was slowly organizing itself. Caree could see the king now, standing with Lord Stark and watching their people attempt to blend. He was laughing about something. Caree knew Jaime and Cersei well enough to know that neither of them held Robert in high regard, and her father certainly considered him a fool, but Caree had to admire the man's sense of humor. In fact, as a creature with a tendency towards cynicism, she envied it. "You should go to the front," she told Jaime. "Guard the king, and whatnot."

"I care more for you than I do the king." Then he gave her a look that told her she would not like what he said next. "Do you really intend to go through with this foolishness?"

The statement came from nowhere, and perhaps that was why it hurt more than it should have. That, or because it came from him. "You sound like Cersei."

"Caree, the Wall is no place for a woman. You know what kind of men they send up there. You also know Father would forbid you to take another step north from here. When he hears of this, he'll be furious, with you and me both."

"If you thought I shouldn't go," she said stiffly, "why didn't you speak earlier?"

"Because in the past, little sister, you've proven to have a penchant for throwing fits when you don't get your way." He sighed and rested an arm on her horse. "I was hoping you would change your mind on your own."

"Then perhaps you do not know me as well as you think." A lump had formed in her throat. Is this truly how he thought of her? As a silly girl, prone to stomping her foot when life did not suit her? She tightened the rope holding her bag to the saddle so she would not have to look at Jaime anymore. But she could not keep him from leaning down to her. He spoke again, his voice gentler now.

"I know you well enough to know that you have an older brother who would very much prefer it if you were not harmed," he said.

Caree stared at her hands before whipping her head to Jaime and giving him the stare instead. "And is my older brother ordering me not to go?"

There was a side of Jaime Lannister that, as Caree had learned over the years, he revealed only to a handful of people. She was one of the privileged few and he was revealing it to her now, in the softness of his face, the nearly sad look in the eyes they shared. It made it more difficult to be angry, because she knew his resistance stemmed from concern, and she loved him for that. But if he ordered her not to go, they would clash like they never had before, and she did not think she would handle that well.

"He's ordering you to be very careful," Jaime finally answered, and Caree felt a knot loosen inside of her. She offered a crooked smile.

"Then perhaps I'll consider obeying."

His arm hooked her neck and pulled her to him. The emotion she had been fighting strengthened, fought back, and threatened to spill over as she wrapped her arms around Jaime's neck. Caree loved her father, she would die for Myrcella and Tommen, and Tyrion was dear enough to her, but Jaime was Jaime. And, although she had spent half of her life away from him, she had spent none of it so far away as the Wall. Such a massive distance scared her in a way she had not been aware of, not until now, with this moment upon them.

When they parted, she painted that crooked smile on her face again, and if Jaime could tell it was false, he said nothing of it. He only took her chin, like he had when she was little and not listening, and trapped her eyes with his. "Now promise me. Promise me you'll be careful."

"I _promise."_

He lifted her onto her horse as if she weighed nothing. Fear's icy fingers were now wrapped firmly around Caree's heart. "I'll see you soon," she said, more as a reassurance to herself than a promise to Jaime. His hand covered hers for a moment, and then was gone.

Later, with Winterfell in the distance and the kingsroad forcing a choice of north or south, Caree dug her heels into her mare and rode ahead of Jon Snow and his uncle, ahead of Tyrion and their two Lannister men, and she did it without looking back at any of them, or at the King's procession, or at Winterfell. When a difficult task presented itself, she found it was better to accomplish it quickly. And this way, the wind dried her tears before they could fall from her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

Had Jaime appeared on the side of the road a week into the journey, Caree would have killed him. Or, tried to. For what sort of brother would not forbid her to undergo such a trek? She had never ridden more than three consecutive days, and by the fifth day of this ride, her legs and back were aching and her hands and thighs were rubbed raw. And she was cold. She was _so_ cold, so much colder than she had ever been, and the air grew colder with every mile they pressed on, as the terrain grew rougher, and the brush thicker. Every night Caree decided they were in the wildest part of the wilderness, and every day, as their journey pulled them farther and farther north, she was proved wrong. And yet, technically, they were still on the kingsroad, only riding away from the king, to a mysterious Wall Caree had only heard about in stories, sometimes with reverence, sometimes with ridicule. Well, she would decide for herself, assuming she lived to see it. She could not decide if it was sheer stubbornness that compelled her to bite back complaints, or the fact that Tyrion was having at least as bad of a time. More like, worse.

Nine days after leaving Winterfell, another brother of the Night's Watch joined them, and he brought guests. They had made camp by a river for the evening, Caree nursing her raw legs, and Benjen Stark disappeared for a time and came back shortly with the new men. The two who were not in black had bound hands and sullen expressions. "Sit," Stark told them. "You'll be fed."

The two captives obeyed, edging in closer to the fire at camp's center. One of them glanced nervously over, but when he took in Caree, the nerves seemed to vanish, replaced by an odd smile of yellow against his black beard. Anxiety crawled up Caree's ribcage, and she pushed herself an inch closer to Jon. Stark ordered the men be untied, and Caree looked at his nephew, who sat watching the men with the faintest look of confusion, and then to her right, at her brother, who was gazing up from his book with just the vaguest interest. "Rapers," he said to Caree and Jon, and the former caught a chill with the word. Two days before, Benjen Stark had begrudgingly given her a musty but thick fur cloak to battle the cold, and she wrapped it around her now, as the men – the rapers – held their hands up to be released. But it did not help, unsurprisingly. She knew the chill had nothing to do with the climate. "They were given a choice, no doubt," said Tyrion. "Castration or the Wall. Most choose the knife."

Jaime might as well have been next to Caree, whispering in her ear. _You know what kind of men they send up there. _

"Not impressed by your new brothers?" Tyrion asked, not to her. Jon's gloved hands were massaging one another. His eyes were cast down, and he did not reply to Tyrion. Caree felt a twinge of pity for him. Jon Snow was on his way to a life of freezing, of hungry nights, of rapers and thieves and all the other unsavory characters Westeros had to offer, and he would not even be allowed to share a woman's bed – that was an integral part of the vows of the Night's Watch. If this truly was a better choice for a bastard than to attempt to live as part of normal society, she was unsure she would have survived as a bastard. "Lovely thing about the watch," continued Tyrion conversationally. "You discard your old family and get a whole new one." His eyes returned to his book.

"Why do read so much?" Jon asked abruptly.

Tyrion was unshaken by the change of subject. "Look at me and tell me you what you see."

Jon looked to Caree. "Is this a trick?"

"Tyrion, Jon wants to know if this is a trick." She found that her mouth had gone quite dry. She reached for her wineskin as Tyrion gave a small smile.

"What you see is a dwarf," he said. "If I had been born a peasant, they might have left me out in the woods to die."

Caree took a gulp more of wine than she needed.

"Alas, I was born a Lannister of Casterly Rock. Things are expected of me. My father was the hand of the king for twenty years –"

"Until your brother killed that king," said Jon. Caree lowered her wineskin and regarded him, jaw grinding, and his eyes came as if called. He did not flinch, even though the one true dispute they had ever had began when Jon called her brother _Kingslayer_. He had refused to quit the term, so eventually she struck him for it. There was no way he did not remember that.

After a moment, Tyrion answered, "Yes. Until our brother killed him. Don't act so offended, Caree, history doesn't lie. Life is filled with these little ironies . . ."

Caree pressed her knuckles into the ground.

"Our sister married the new king," Tyrion mused, "And our repulsive nephew will be king after him." He gazed into the fire before turning again to Jon. "I must do my part for the honor of my house, wouldn't you agree? But how? Well, my brother has his sword, and I have my mind, and a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone. That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."

Jon absorbed this, his hands still working. "If he has his mind," he said to Caree, "and your other brother has his sword, what do you have?"

She grinned against the cold inside of her as well as out. "You have a man named Ren Balter, do you not?"

Jon nodded. "He's a member of Winterfell's household guard."

"If ever you return home, ask him what it is I have."

Jon's eyebrows popped up.

"What my baby sister means to say," Tyrion said, flipping through his book, "is that she has a remarkable way of getting people to love her. Especially when they have no reason to."

That was not, actually, what Caree meant to say, but it worked well enough. "Hence," said Caree, "I had Ren Balter in my bed."

"Hence," said Tyrion, "she has our father's everlasting affection. Something at least one-third of his other children can only dream of."

"You bedded Ren?" Jon said, and Caree, who tended to avoid discussing their father with Tyrion, was grateful for the interruption . . . until she took in Jon's expression. His incredulous, nearly _hurt _expression. Guilt spread through her body. Of course he was thinking about Robb. _But I do not belong to Robb Stark, _she thought, chasing out the shame with fierceness, _and I can bed whomever I wish. _

"Indeed I did," she said, and the fire crackled and one of the other men sneezed before Tyrion cleared his throat.

"And you? What's your story, bastard?"

Jon inhaled. "Ask me nicely and maybe I'll tell you, dwarf."

Caree let a smile slip to her lips, in spite of herself, and Tyrion himself grinned a bit. "A bastard boy with nothing to inherit, off to join the ancient order of the Night's Watch . . ." He gestured over his shoulder. "Alongside his valiant brothers-in-arms –"

He had hit a nerve. "The Night's Watch protects the realm from –"

"Ah, yes, yes. Against grumpkins and snarks and all the other monsters your wet nurse warned you about."

He was going too far. Caree let him.

"You're a smart boy," Tyrion said. "You don't believe that nonsense."

And as Jon's gaze drifted once again to the rapers, Caree could see the truth written on his face as plainly as she had heard Tyrion say it. She held her wineskin out to the boy. "Here," she told him. "Everything's better with some wine in the belly."

"I taught her that," said Tyrion.

Jon drank, and drank deeply.

Later, as night fell and sleepiness crept in on her, Benjen Stark came up to Caree. "Don't be frightened of them," he said, nodding at the rapers. "They're not stupid enough to harm you under our noses."

"I should hope not. I would hate to have _unintelligent _rapers protecting me from the threats skulking beyond the Wall."

Stark sighed. "You should not have come."

"So you've said. So everyone's said." She held out her arms. "And yet here I am."

**. . . . . . . . . . **

**A.N.: Thanks for the reviews! Always love hearing your thoughts. You guys are delightful.**


	8. Chapter 8

_Jaime – _

_I imagine this will reach King's Landing before you do, but you should have it soon enough. We have arrived safely at the Wall. The stories do it no justice. I cannot possibly hope to describe it to you on such a small piece of paper, nor can I say how long we will stay here, but I do like it. Perhaps I shall take the black. A daughter of Lannister joining the men of the Night's Watch – what a song that would make. _

_I hope this message finds you and the rest of our family safe and well. Try not to miss me too much, dear brother. I only miss you a bit. _

– _Caree_

. . . . .

"Stop looking at them like that," Tyrion said.

"I'm not looking at them like anything." Caree kept her eyes on the yard below, where an assortment of boys and men – Jon Snow among them – sparred under the supervision and instruction of Alliser Thorne, whom, if Caree remembered correctly, had been sent here by her own father after the rebellion, having been given the choice between the Wall or death. An interesting enough story, but not interesting enough for the old man to hold her attention now. There were too many young men around him.

"They are brothers of the Night's Watch," Tyrion said. "They're celibate."

"They haven't taken their vows yet."

"So you _admit _to watching them like _that."_

She shrugged. "I admire men who can handle a sword."

"In that case, you must admire Jon Snow quite a lot. And the rest of them quite a little."

Jon Snow was just stepping to the center of the rough circle, brandishing his sparring sword and looking like a man with a grave job to do – an executioner, perhaps. A fitting comparison, considering how the other boys' skills compared to his.

"Grenn." Scorn was a perpetual companion to Alliser Thorne's tongue. "Show him what farm boys are made of."

Grenn, a broad boy with thick hair and hungry eyes, stalked towards Jon, sword ready. He was of an impressive build, a bit larger than his opponent, but within moments of the first clash of swords, Grenn was bent over, howling, holding his shattered nose. Caree watched the blood pour out between the boy's fingers. "He's not much for mercy, is he?"

Alliser's voice rang up from the yard. "If that were a real sword, you'd be dead. Lord Snow here grew up in a castle, spitting down on the likes of you." _Lord Snow. _That was the nickname he had given to Jon, who had never been called _Lord _in his life. No bastard ever was. "Pyp," called Thorne. "Do you think Ned Stark's bastard bleeds like the rest of us?"

A lanky boy stepped up. Soon he was on the ground, curled up and fighting for air. Thorne, sounding slightly disappointed, called for the next man, and the next, with no new result. There was no doubt about it – Jon was the best fighter among them.

"Bed the bastard, if you must," Tyrion said. "Though I myself am not overly fond of uncalled for viciousness."

"I would never bed Jon," Caree said. "But you don't know him. It isn't his intention to be _vicious."_

"Which do you find more important, my lady?" Lord Commander Jeor Mormont appeared beside Tyrion. He was an imposing man, the one-time lord of Bear Island, and years after relinquishing that title he still very much looked the bear. Age had taken the color from his hair and pulled at his skin, but his body held strong, and there was a certain vigor about him that commanded respect. He reminded Caree of her father. The mild look of cynicism he gave her now did not change that in the least. "What a man means to be," he said, "or what he is?"

"I think both aspects need to be taken into consideration, Lord Commander, if a fair appraisal is to be made," she said. "I believe that what a man means to be better _defines_ who, if not what, he truly is."

"I have to disagree with you, my dear." Tyrion readjusted his cloak. "Men are defined by their actions."

"I agree." The Lord Commander gripped the railing in front of them and gazed grimly down at his charges. "A man's actions are all he has to his name, in the end. No one ever wrote a book or sang a song about what a man meant to be."

His words were nearly drowned out by Alliser Thorne's. "Go clean yourselves up! There's only so much I can stomach in a day!"

Caree watched the boys leave the yard, some stomping and some slinking, all defeated by the man and the day. Thorne spat on the ground. "He seems delightful," Caree said.

"I don't need him to be delightful," Mormont replied. "I need him to turn this bunch of thieves and runaways into men of the Night's Watch."

Caree raised her eyes to the man. "And how is that going, Lord Commander?"

His grimace seemed to intensify, just a bit, almost to the point of pain. "Slowly." He pulled something from his belt – a scroll. "A raven came. For Ned Stark's son."

Fear rushed through Caree. She was barely able to stop herself from wrenching the message from the Lord Commander's hand when he held it out to Tyrion. Her brother, to his credit, held it immediately over his shoulder for Caree. "Good news or bad?" he asked Mormont as she ripped open the scroll.

"Both."

Caree's eyes flew across the note before strolling back through it, soaking in the words. Her heart raced and then slowed and then broke, just a little. "Oh, Bran," she murmured.

Tyrion went with her to find Jon, because she had sent their men, Jyck and Morrec, back to their chamber (or wherever they wanted to go that was not with her) earlier that morning, when Tyrion was not around. In her mind, house guards ran in the same vein as handmaidens – they could not be trusted, no matter how friendly or loyal they seemed to be.

Brother and sister went straight for the armory in search of Jon Snow. And, indeed, they found him there. So had Grenn, Pyp, and one of the rapers. The one with the smile that had given Caree chills. Grenn's face was covered in blood and his knife was ready to spill Jon's when Tyrion opened the door. He looked over his shoulder at the dwarf and said, "What're you lookin' at, halfman?" His eyes darted to Caree, behind her brother, but returned to him just as fast. She could not decide if that was an insult or a compliment.

"I'm looking at you," Tyrion answered smoothly. "Yes . . . You've got an interesting face. Mm . . . Very distinctive faces, all of you."

"And what do you care about our faces?" snapped the raper. He held one of Jon's arms. Pyp held the other and glanced apprehensively between Grenn and Tyrion. The latter leaned against the doorframe like a man with no problems and an eternity to solve them.

"It's just, I think they would look marvelous decorating spikes in King's Landing," he said. "Don't you agree, Caree?"

She stared at the raper. "Perhaps we should write our sister about it."

"Our sister the queen?"

"The very same."

Such a simple exchange, but it was all it took to dissolve the confrontation. The boys released Jon. Grenn lowered his knife, muttered something, and turned his back on the bastard to follow Pyp, who had already scurried to the edge of the room to remove his armor. The raper left, passing by Caree to do so. She made herself hold his gaze the entire time, but then he was gone.

Jon fell back against a table. As cold as it was, his hair stuck to his forehead, damp with perspiration. He looked wearily down at Tyrion as the dwarf walked up to him. "Everybody knew what this place was," Jon said. "And no one told me. No one but you. My father knew, and he left me to rot at the Wall all the same."

"Grenn's father left him, too," Tyrion replied. Grenn whipped his head towards the lord. "Outside of a farmhouse when he was three."

That knocked the words from Jon.

"Pyp," Tyrion continued, "was caught stealing a wheel of cheese. His little sister hadn't eaten in three days . . . He was given a choice: His right hand or the Wall."

Pyp said nothing.

"I've been asking the Lord Commander about them," Tyrion said, answering the question dancing in Caree's head. "Fascinating stories."

Jon remembered himself. He spoke to Tyrion with borderline aggression, his fists clenched and all. "They hate me because I'm better than they are!"

"It's a lucky thing none of them were trained by a master-at-arms, like your Ser Rodrick." Small though he was, Tyrion's voice could compete with any man's. "I don't imagine any of them have ever held a real sword before they came here . . . ?" Grenn and Pyp's mutual silence answered for them, and that was evidently enough of a conclusion for Tyrion. He gave Jon a parting glance and turned on his heel to go. He met his sister's eyes, and she prepared for him to demand she come with him, but he left the armory without another word.

Jon stood with his head tilted down, eyes fluttering about as if there were a map in front of him. Caree watched him for a bit before holding up the message Mormont had given her. "Word from Winterfell."

Jon's eyes quit his map to snap to her.

"Bran's woken up."

For a moment, Jon turned to ice. In the moment after, he was directly in front of Caree, snatching the scroll from her.

"Jon –" she began, but he was already reading, and she remembered they were not alone. Pyp and Grenn still stood a few paces away, apparently doing nothing. She raised her eyebrows at them. "Have you still a reason to be in here?"

The boys exchanged looks and then crept around her and through the doorway. She and Jon had the room to themselves, and that was when he said, "My brother will never walk again."

There was a stabbing sensation in Caree's chest. He sounded like Robb had, that night in the godswood, confessing that he had not prayed for Bran. "Your brother's alive."

Jon formed a fist over the message and flung it to the ground. "He's a cripple. Bran will never be happy as a cripple."

"Bran will adjust and grow strong and move on and do great things."

"Well, it's easy to say all that, isn't it? When it's not you?"

Caree brought her hands together and dug the fingernails of one into the skin of the other. "It's not you, either," she said. "And of the two of us, I would say I have more in common with Bran at the moment."

Understanding passed over Jon, but faded just as quick. "It's not the same."

"It's not that different."

He did not look at her. His eyes were shining, though, and Caree wanted nothing more than to stay and discuss Bran and come to a conclusion between them – a conclusion she actually believed – that would make them both happy. She would not do that, though. Jon would never dare cry in front of her, and he very much looked as if he needed to cry. So she stepped back, head down. "Heed my brother's advice," she muttered, and left Jon Snow to rejoice and mourn for his brother.

The yard had mostly emptied, save for a few dawdlers clinging to the edges with the dirty snow no one bothered to shovel away. Three of these dawdlers were the boys that had just left Caree. Yes, Grenn, Pyp, and the raper stood right to the side of the wooden stairs Caree needed to take to return to her chambers. They fell silent as she neared, and when she was steps away from the stairs, the raper stood up and blocked her way. "Lady C'ree Lannister," he said with that damned smile. "I've heard it said that your sister is the most beautiful woman in the land, but looking at you, I can't help but disagree."

"Caree," she said.

His smile faltered. "What?"

"Caree. Not _C'ree. _Cuh-ree. Though you may just call me _My lady, _if you must call me at all. Which you do not." She caught Pyp shifting, uncomfortable. Grenn was watching the raper with a half-wary, half-awed expression. "Now," she said, returning her attention to the man in question, "Step aside and let me be on my way."

The raper looked to his peers for appreciation, received none visible to Caree, but cleared his throat just the same and said, "You're a rude little cunt, aren't you?" He broke into a rapid laugh. It reminded Caree of a rat.

Grenn stepped forward. "Shut it, ya loony," he said. "Let's go eat –"

Caree raised her hand at the boy and he fell silent. "What's your name?" she asked the raper, who puffed out his chest.

"Rast, _m'lady_. Ra-ast."

"Rast. Let's evaluate this situation. My brother and I _just _suggested we might put your head on a spike for threatening someone who is not even our blood. What do you think might be done to you for insulting _me_?"

Rast's eyes flashed with what Caree could only guess was a realization of his own idiocy. His mouth opened, but she did not let him speak. "My brother used our sister to scare you off, but to be truthful, my sister and I do not have what you would call an exceptional relationship. So, instead of invoking her name in order to strike a bit of fear into someone's heart, I might invoke that of my father, Lord Tywin Lannister, Warden of the West and richest man in the Seven Kingdoms. He would put up an outrageous bounty – mounds and mounds of gold – for the head of any man who dares to disrespect me. Or, I may go a different direction entirely and mention my brother, Ser Jaime Lannister. I'm sure you've heard of him. Many believe him to be the greatest swordsman of our time. And he is quite protective of me, older brothers can be like that, as Pyp here can tell you." She smiled at Rast, whose mouth had fallen open. "But if you do not fear crossing swords with my brother, or if having hundreds of coin-hungry rogues hunting you down gives you a certain thrill . . . by all means, insult me again."

Rast did not insult her again. Rast stared at her dumbly.

"Step aside," Caree said, and, after a moment, Rast did. "Smart boy."


	9. Chapter 9

_Dearest Robb,_

_ I do not know whether to tell you how thrilled I am that Bran is awake or how heartbroken I am at his condition. I suppose I've just told you both. That was idiotic._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

_Dearest Robb,_

_ I hope you will give Bran my best. I cannot imagine what he is going through, although, in a way _

_ Fuck._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

_Dearest Robb,_

_ I'm happy to hear that Bran has woken up, whatever his state. Are you well? Of course you're not. Robb, why did you kiss me? Here's a better question – why was I such a bitch to you? "You did not even deflower me, you fool." I'm the fucking fool. "No, I don't want to bed you, but we'll always have the warm memories of friendship!" Gods be good – I don't know what I was saying, I don't know what I was doing, I don't know, I don't know, I don't fucking know, Robb. I know I thought I was doing what was right. And I know I should have told you the truth, a long time ago. Or maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I shouldn't now. I don't want to._

_ FUCK. _

_ You don't want word from me. _

. . . . .

Caree had found that, without exception, she became braver with sleep deprivation. Which is why, just as dawn dared creep along the Wall, she was leaving her bed chambers, buried under a bundle of furs. Leaving her guards behind was quite easy, considering they took shifts outside of her door and Jyck had fallen asleep sometime in the night. He snored. Who knew?

Outside, the mounds of clothing on her shoulders proved to be not nearly enough, but she clenched her teeth and pushed onward, because she very much doubted the temperature would warm up any time soon, and she had waited long enough for courage to find her. She was going to the top of the Wall this morning, whether her blood froze or not. Snow whipped around her, clinging to her clothes and hair, biting her face as she made her way along the icy walkways. The courtyard below was empty. Before long, she reached the lift – a cage set against the Wall, a contraption capable of hauling multiple people up to the top, if only a man would grab onto a sort of lever and push it around and around a pole, awakening a pulley system and hoisting the cage upwards. Caree got a nod from the man on duty and climbed into the cage as he readied to send her up. Just as she was about to lock herself in, a gloved hand grasped the door of bars. Jon Snow looked surprised to see her. "Mind if I join you?" he asked anyway.

She stepped back. He came into the cage, locked the door, and backed up next to Caree. There was a clamorous creaking, then, as if in a dream, they were rising from the ground. The courtyard drifted away from them like one more snowflake, and then they had left Castle Black for the sky. Caree twisted her head up but tried not to move her feet – it felt as if she could send the cage hurtling back down with one wrong move. The Wall stretched far above them, an ice wall against an ice sky. It would be a long ride. And for the first minute or so, it was a ride of silence, the pair gazing out at the snowy expanse they had ridden across to reach this place. It did not look so wild from here.

Then Jon spoke, nearly having to shout above the groaning lift and the wailing wind. "I was impolite yesterday," he said. "After you gave me the message from Winterfell. I shouldn't have spoken to you like I did."

"I wouldn't say you were impolite," she called back. "More like . . . insolent." She turned to look at him to find he was looking at her, and they both tried to keep straight faces. Until they couldn't. It was a good moment, laughing with him. It warmed Caree, something she desperately needed, in more ways than one.

When they remembered themselves, Caree said, "I don't know if you noticed, but my brother Tyrion is a bit short."

"I have noticed."

"He needs a special saddle to ride a horse. He designed it himself. I haven't talked to him about it, but it's possible he could draw up a similar plan for Bran."

"Bran could still ride?"

"I don't see why not . . . I know how much he liked it when he was younger."

"He still does . . . did. If he knew he still could, it would make him feel better."

"He'll feel better either way. He's strong, Bran."

Jon said nothing for a moment. "I keep forgetting that you know him, too."

Caree's braid was trying to come undone. She pushed the dancing stray hairs behind her ear before returning her hand to safety. "Not like you do."

"No, but you know him." His eyes found hers, studied whatever he saw. She considered turning away but found she couldn't. What _did_ he see? "It's just you've changed so much."

She knew that . . . yes, oh, she knew that. "You haven't," she told him. "Always a bastard at heart, aren't you?"

He closed off from her, so visibly that he might as well have announced it.

"I'm sorry," she said a moment later. "I should not have said that. It was . . ."

"Insolent?" he offered.

"Yes. Very much so."

The creaking of the lift. The howling of the wind.

"Bastard or not," Caree said, "I envy you."

"Why would you envy me?"

She leaned forward, just a bit, fighting the desire to hold onto Jon. Castle Black was right where they had left it, just much, much smaller. "You know where you want to be. What you want to be doing." A sigh tried to break from her lungs; she changed it into a laugh. "Who you are, even. Of course, you can't fuck anyone, I don't like that part, but . . . you have a purpose, Jon."

"And you don't?"

She rested on her heels again. "The gods did not see fit to give me one, I'm afraid."

"I don't think a purpose is something we're given," Jon said. "I think it's something we have to find."

"Ah, wise words. Do you have any suggestions on where to look?"

A moment passed, and Caree recognized its length as a warning just before Jon said, "There's always Winterfell."

She closed her eyes. "Jon . . ."

"He's in love with you."

"He _was _in love with me," she said to him, to herself. "At fourteen. That was a long, long time ago, and as you just said, I've changed."

"Yes, you have. But he's still in love with you."

What right did he have to bring this up? And to speak so calmly about it, so simply, as if it were fact? None of this was fact. Love, emotion, it was never a fact. It was guesswork, every bit of it, guesswork that Caree wanted no part of.

She was not a good guesser.

"Yes, well," she said, as cold as the Northern wind that doused them, "He'll have to get over that. His future wife won't like it very much –"

The lift stopped with a jolt, and Caree nearly cried out before whipping around and feeling like a fool, which was becoming all too common for her. They had reached the top of the Wall.

Jon pulled open the back door of the cage. Caree followed him through it, then through a pair of wooden half-doors and down slick steps. They had arrived at a place that was not unlike a corridor in a house, other than the fact that ice covered everything and there was no ceiling above. Caree swallowed and took a breath to calm her racing heart, and for the first time noticed how thin the air had gotten. She and Jon moved forward, passing a man kneeling next to a fire and going around a corner. A long, white stretch fell out before them, walls on either side. They walked and walked until they found a gaping mouth in one of those walls. Wooden archways, some broken, pushed the ice and the sky away from the opening. Jon glanced at Caree before walking forward, under the wood, out to the sky. Caree let him get a look before she followed – this was his more than it was hers – but once she did, once she reached his side and _saw_, an overwhelming sense of bittersweet awe coursed through her, so strong, so strong that she thought she might burst and pour over the wall right there, to forever be a part of _here. _To look out on it forever.

It was an entirely different land than what she knew, this expanse before her, but it didn't end, not that she could see. How large was it, the span beyond the wall? Had she known once? A forest covered the ground below her, thick green dusted with white, and on from that, on and on and on, mountains. She had seen mountains. She had not seen mountains like these before. Clouds hid the peaks, snow masked everything, on the ground, in the air. The North. The true North. With wildings, with direwolves, with danger and death and life.

So she imagined.

"This is your purpose, Jon Snow," she called, the tension between them forgotten. "And none I'll ever have could possibly beat it."

**. . . . .**

**A.N.: Hey, guys! I would really appreciate some feedback, if you have the time. Your thoughts matter, believe me. Stay lovely.**


	10. Chapter 10

Throughout Caree's life, she had felt most comfortable among men. Her mother had died just after her fifth nameday, and though there had been a line of septas to care for Caree, her father had been her main adult caretaker, and authority figure, and role model. Well, her father and Jaime. Even aside from them, Caree had still always been surrounded by men – the maester, knights, guards, stable boys. At Casterly Rock, she had rarely dared to escape lessons with the septa or the maester, but at King's Landing, with only Jaime to answer to for her wrongdoings, things were much easier. She would slip away from her teachers and run to see knights sparring in the yard, or to toss dice with a couple of guards, or to help the stable boys groom the horses. Overall, she had grown up with very few women and an abundance of men. Which is why, during her last night at Castle Black, as she sat at a table with three of them, she felt more at home than she had during her entire stay.

They were in the otherwise-empty common hall, lounging at a table. Grenn and Pyp sat across from her; Jon sat to her right. Their stomachs were full, their heads were buzzing with Caree's wine, and reservations were falling like rain. Jon had already made his peace with Grenn and Pyp by helping them – as opposed to beating them soundly – during their swordplay in the yard earlier that day. As for Caree, she had smiled and offered wine, and sooner than she might have expected, the two boys were forgetting the awkward manners commoners tried to practice upon fraternizing with lords and ladies. Thank the gods. They were both grinning at her like old friends now, immersed in her story.

"You hit the crown prince?" Pyp said incredulously.

She took another swig from her wineskin and said, "I hit my nephew, who happens to be the crown prince. I was ten, he was seven, there was barely any distinction." She half-smiled. "Besides the fact that I was bigger."

Pyp glanced at Grenn, wearing a half-smile of his own. "Remind me never to kill any pets of yours."

"It was just the sweetest little rabbit . . . And when Joffrey twisted its neck like a plaything . . ." Caree could still see it now, the rodent squirming and squirming and then . . . not. She could hear it even better. "Well," she said, and could neither miss nor correct the bitterness in her tone, "that was the first time I realized he was no longer my friend." She drank again. "Ah . . . I broke his nose. My sister, our beloved queen, wanted my nose to be broken as well. But my brother Jaime stepped in and put an end to that. _Father would never have it, _and whatnot. Really, he knew Joffrey had it coming, but he could hardly tell _her _that . . . I was sentenced to my bedchamber for two weeks. But the Red Keep is positively _filled _with little secrets. Hidden rooms, invisible trapdoors . . . There's a passageway that leads from my room to the kitchens, a friend told me about it long before this, but I'd never had much need for it. Now, though, since I could not be seen within the castle, I was desperate for whatever escape I could find. From the kitchens, I would slip out and explore King's Landing. It was the first time I had ever done so unchaperoned. That's how I learned all about _them_."

"All about who?" asked Grenn.

She tilted her wineskin forward. "You. Your type. The commoners. And I was fascinated by you."

"In what way, m'lady?"

"Every way!" she exclaimed, a bit too loudly. "You dressed yourselves, you fed yourselves. You worked, dawn to dusk, selling things, making things. Barefoot children ran about, shirtless men – some shirtless women!"

Grenn grinned sheepishly. "King's Landing sounds a lot different than where I'm from."

Pyp slapped his shoulder. "A lot better, I'd wager."

Caree was not finished. "And there was – dirt, over everything. People, buildings. Me, by the time the day was done. Jaime was waiting for me when I snuck back into my chambers after my fourth or fifth day out on the city, and he took one look at me and knew exactly what I'd been doing. That was the end of that." She almost looked to Jon, the only one who knew Jaime, but then remembered that he did not know the Jaime she did. He knew the Kingslayer.

Pyp rested his head on his crossed arms. "Exploring the city was such a crime?"

Caree shook her head slowly. Jaime's words left her mouth: "It was no place for a Lannister."

The boys across from her did not blink. Did they understand what that meant? To be defined by a house, by your blood? Her eyes slid sideways. Jon did. As well as anyone. "In reality," she said, "It truly wasn't very smart. If an unsavory character had realized who I was, a knife to my throat could have made him a very rich man. But I liked it, the city. And when I got older, and better understood how to blend in, I made frequent trips there." Now, finally, she turned to Jon. "That was after Winterfell, of course."

"Winterfell?" Pyp said. "Where Jon's from?"

"Where Jon's from," she said. She drank more wine, thinking that she should be offering more to the boys and not particularly caring. Jon had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if he understood everything, but she knew better. "I was betrothed to his brother."

A beat of silence, then Grenn asking, "When?"

The corner of her mouth tilted up. "Right before I wasn't. As it happened, he was much too good for me." One last drink, the wine was gone, and it was time for her to be. She stood and the ground tipped under her feet. "Well. I'm going to bed. Thank you for a fine evening, gentlemen. I wish you all the best."

. . . . . . . . . .

She could still hear him. From that day.

_Caree! Caree, open the door. Please, I – they won't tell me why you're leaving. Why . . . please, let's talk._

And she had just lain in bed, crying, crying.

_Please, Caree. I don't . . . I don't want you to go._

And then, not four years but barely a month ago –

_I should have married you. I should never have allowed our betrothal to be broken._

That was the memory that made her legs kick, untangle themselves from the scratchy quilt. "Damn you, Robb Stark," she snarled to the dark as her bare feet touched the rough floor. She found a dress, she ran her fingers through her hair, and she left the room. Jyck protested. She didn't care. When she came back an hour later and he protested again, this time because she wasn't alone, she cared even less.

In the morning, she woke up with her head on a man's chest. She lifted it up to look at Grenn, who was stirring. She traced a finger across his lips and grinned. "I should have had a farm boy long ago. You're so _strong_ . . . I'm not the first girl you've bedded, though, am I?"

His eyes cracked open, and his hand glided onto her bare back, into her tangled hair. "No, m'lady," he mumbled, cracking his neck, "But you're very likely the last. And a good one to go out on, if I may say so."

"You are a charmer, aren't you?"

He gave her a sweet smile and she gave him one back. She liked him, Grenn. She pulled herself up along the bed, bringing her head closer to his. "The women of Westeros won't know what they've lost."

"One or two will." He brushed hair from her eyes.

She laughed. "Yes, I suppose so. It will be up to me to tell the story of Grenn, the farm-boy-turned-hero of the Night's Watch."

"I doubt I'll be a hero."

"Of course you will. I don't bed men who aren't heroes." It was an outrageous lie, but he had spoken with such resignation, and had been so kind to her throughout the night, that she couldn't help herself. "No, I have an eye for these things." She put a hand on either side of his head and pushed herself up. Her breasts dangled over Grenn's face, and he licked his lips and slid his hands around her waist. "You, Grenn the farm boy," she promised, "are going to do great things." She lowered herself to him again, her lips met his lips, and things went on and on and were almost _there _when someone knocked and ruined it all.

"Caree!" came Tyrion's most displeased voice. The girl shoved herself off of Grenn. "We agreed we would leave at dawn! You are making Yoren wait, and more importantly, me!"

She scrambled out of the bed and Grenn's arms. "Sorry!" She spun around, naked, searching for her dress. "There are no windows in here! Jyck, why didn't you wake me?"

"Jyck couldn't wake himself," answered Tyrion, and Caree could envision the look he must be giving the poor guard now. "If you aren't in the courtyard momentarily, I'm leaving without you and telling Father you've run off with a wildling."

At that, she had to send a smile to Grenn, sitting up in bed, his hair sticking up in all directions. "Close enough."

Ten minutes later, after a slow dressing process and a long kiss goodbye, Caree arrived in the yard in a wonderful mood. Morrec and Jyck held Willow, as well as Tyrion's horse and three others, while Tyrion and Yoren – an older, grizzled brother of the Night's Watch who aimed to find new recruits in the King's Landing dungeons – stood a short distance away, speaking with the Lord Commander. Tyrion gasped at the sight of her. "How very nice of you to join us!"

"I overslept, Tyrion. It was terribly irresponsible of me, and I extend my deepest apologies. To you as well, Yoren. Only with a bit more sincerity."

"Overslept," Tyrion repeated as Yoren gave her a nod, "Yes, _that_ certainly explains those dark bags under your eyes. Now go say goodbye to that boy and let's be on our way."

"What boy? I told you –"

He gave her an exasperated look and pointed. "_That _boy." She followed his finger, not to Grenn, but to Jon Snow, standing on the wooden platform in front of the lift. He dipped his head.

When she reached him, he said, "Do you not like goodbyes?"

"I'm indifferent to them." She climbed the steps and started shifting from foot to foot, already desperate for warmth. As much as she liked the North, she doubted she could ever grow accustomed to the cold. "What you've been doing with the other boys, treating them like people? You should keep that up."

"What your brother said to me made sense."

"He's usually right, I must admit. Gods know I'll never tell him that."

Jon's eyes flickered behind her, presumably to Tyrion. "I'd wager he knows."

She sighed. "And I would not take that wager." She tilted her head back to take in the Wall one last time. "It's a good place, Jon. Rough, no doubt. You'll know that far better than I before long. But I think you'll do well here."

He nodded and thought. "Will you stop at Winterfell?"

She scowled. _"Don't. _Do you really wish to go into this? People like you are the reason I don't like goodbyes."

"I thought you were _indifferent_."

"Thank the gods I'm leaving here. How dishonorable it would be for a brother of the Night's Watch to be killed by a woman. A _Lannister, _no less."

"Well," he said, the corner of his mouth tilting up, "if it has to be any woman . . ."

"Caree!"

That was Tyrion calling, not urgently, but it was clear it was time to leave. Now, though, looking at the boy she had not planned on giving a farewell, Caree realized with a spasm of fear that she was not ready to go. She swallowed. "Well."

"Well," Jon said, suddenly whispering.

They embraced wordlessly. Caree pressed her face into the dark furs of his black cloak, felt his hair tickle her cheek. He smelled like smoke and sweat and snow, and she inhaled deeply, because she did not want to forget that smell.

They parted as quickly as they had come together. Her hand lingered on his chest. "This isn't the last time I'll see you, Jon," she said with a certainty she did not feel.

"No," he agreed, "it's not."

She met his eyes once again, green on grey. Then she let her hand fall from his chest. She spun on one foot and walked to Willow. Morrec knelt and gave her a leg-up, and she gathered the reins and took a deep breath. It dribbled out in a fog while she followed Yoren and her brother out of the courtyard, out of Castle Black. She did not turn around for a last look at Jon Snow. She would save that for another time.


	11. Chapter 11

"We can stay in the brothel. There's no need to intrude on the hospitality of the Starks any further," Caree told Tyrion a fortnight later. They were in an inn for the evening, two days' ride from Winterfell. Tomorrow they would camp; the day after that, Tyrion was determined to stay with the Starks – Caree's opinion be damned.

"They will welcome us with open arms," her brother said now, digging into his food.

"And closed hearts." Caree's finger circled the rim of her wine cup. The trials of the road were stamped on Tyrion's face; a life of travel did not suit him. Nor her, for that matter. Caree would have liked to let them both get some proper rest, with roasted duck and hot baths and featherbeds. All of that could be found at Winterfell. But so could the Starks. "They've never liked us, you know that."

"They liked _you."_

"They had to. I was a good match. At first."

"And now you're determined to hide from Robb Stark for the rest of your life." Tyrion took a long gulp of wine and smacked his lips, studying her all the while. "Although I thought you had reconciled with him. What went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong, dear brother, you just read too far into things."

"Mm. And you're a terrible liar."

"I'm a fantastic liar." She twisted around to scan the half-full room, wondering where Yoren had run off to. But, of course, he would not side with her. He would side with Tyrion, who was now reiterating –

"We're staying at Winterfell."

She rolled her head on her neck, trying to squeeze the tension out of it. "Tyrion –"

"I am not spending the night in a brothel with my sister in the next room! I do have _some_ limits . . ."

She cocked her head. "Remember how when I was little, you would sometimes be kind to me?"

"That was when you were cute. When you became pretty, I lost interest."

"Spoken like a true brother."

"What could have gone so wrong before we left," he asked, picking at his bread, "that you're terrified of spending one more night there?"

She did not mean to raise her voice, but the weariness from the ride and the frustration at the conversation joined forces and broke her. "It's not about what happened before we left a month ago, Tyrion, it's about what happened before I left four years ago!"

He gave her a dark look and then smiled at the innkeeper's daughter, who was cleaning a table close to them and staring like a frightened little mouse. Caree rubbed her eyes and waited a moment. When she did speak again, she was careful to control her voice. "I was discovered to be barren, my betrothal was broken –"

"If you're looking for me to cry for you, little sister," Tyrion interrupted, "I'm not going to." He stuck a piece of meat into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and said, flatly, "You have it far better than you think."

Caree's hands slowly formed into fists. She watched her brother, calm as ever, cutting out a new chunk of meat, and finally she said, her voice low, "You don't know what it's like to be me any more than I know what it's like to be you."

"Would you like to switch?" he replied without looking up.

She left the table. She went upstairs to her room, closed the door, threw a candle, and went to bed.


	12. Chapter 12

The courtyard was empty compared to the last time Caree had seen it. There were no soldiers now, no freeriders, no king or carriage. No Robb Stark. Only scattered servants, watching them like crows from cages. Caree pulled Willow to a halt next to Tyrion's horse and bounded down without waiting for help, running her fingers through the mare's damp mane. Willow nuzzled her, and Caree soaked up the affection, but a stable boy scurried up to take the horse before she could blink again. Caree surrendered the animal and was left, so she felt, without a friend. Morrec had helped Tyrion down by then, and her brother straightened himself out with a sigh. "Smile, Caree. You would be surprised how far a smile can get you in this life."

"I'm not in the mood, Tyrion."

"You get more and more like our older sister with each passing day. Shall I lead the way, then?"

She let him, clinging to her last moments outside of the castle. Then Jyck stopped and said, "M'lady?" and, after squeezing her eyes shut for the smallest moment, Caree blew past him, and Morrec, and finally Yoren, until she was at Tyrion's side.

Minutes later, she was there still, but now the siblings stood in a hall, before a long table with the looming seats all nobles were fond of. It was not the Great Hall they had feasted in so many nights before. It was much smaller than that, and yet there was an air of importance about it, which soothed Caree. She had, after all, spent her childhood in the company of the most important people in Westeros. Servants rushed to inform those they needed to inform of the Lannisters' presence, and the guests were left for a time with no one but the guards, who flanked the table and the doors and made Caree want to fidget.

Maester Luwin was the first to arrive. He gave the Lannisters a courteous nod. "My lord, my lady. I hope your journey was a pleasant one."

Before the old man had even finished speaking, apprehension was kindling inside of Caree and threatening to ignite into something much more serious. She went very still, because something was off. The maester, usually as gentle as he was decorous, sounded too . . . detached. His expression was that of an indifferent man, and Caree knew the maester was far from indifferent towards the happenings of Winterfell. She locked a hand over her opposite wrist, squeezed too hard, and looked to Tyrion. He had never known the maester the way she had – did he sense something? Yes. Yes, she thought so. Her brother's eyes were too narrow, just a bit too narrow. But when he spoke, it was with the upmost cheerfulness. "_Pleasant _is not the term I would use. Quite interesting, though. I have no regrets . . . Will Lady Stark be joining us soon?"

The Maester lowered himself into the seat to the direct right of the center chair, which was meant for the Lord of Winterfell. "I'm afraid Lady Stark is not feeling well. Lord Robb Stark will see you in her place."

"Of course he will," Caree muttered. Her discomfort was steadily growing, and not just at the prospect of facing Robb so soon. If Lady Stark was not seeing guests, she was either very ill indeed or not at Winterfell. If the latter was true, any reasons the Maester might not say that outright escaped Caree.

One of the doors on the side of the hall opened loudly, and in strode Robb, looking very much the part of Lord Stark. He wore a man's cloak, thick, with a heavy fur collar. The sword at his hip was certainly no toy. His beard had grown in even thicker, giving him a very serious appearance, and his direwolf trotted at his heels, sniffing the air.

Caree absorbed all of this while hiding behind a forged disinterest, a shaded veil she had woven long ago and wore as needed. She waited for Robb to catch her eyes, to smile sadly or, worse, hopefully. To send a flood of guilt or regret or sorrow or anger gushing through her to extinguish the tickling disquiet.

As he walked with purpose to his father's high seat, his eyes flashed her way and looked straight through her.

A chill broke Caree apart. Confusion filled the cracks, and the embers of apprehension iced over and turned into something far worse.

At the front of the table, the direwolf pulled back his lips to show teeth, but slowly lowered himself to the ground. Robb sat in the high seat, wearing a veil of his own. Caree was suddenly desperate for him to look her way, but he studied her brother and then Yoren, on Caree's other side, without sparing any attention for the girl. "I suppose you're on your way back from the Wall, then," he said, sounding nothing like himself. No, this was the voice of Robb the Lord. Caree had never met him before and was fairly certain she was not going to like him.

Tyrion replied easily. "Indeed we are."

Robb addressed Yoren. "Why have you come with them?"

"To get to King's Landing, my lord. The dungeons there never fail to produce fine recruits."

_Why won't he look at me? _"Your brother is well," Caree said suddenly. "If you care to know." She had not intended to speak, but now that she had, it felt rather good. Robb had no choice but to meet her eyes. She lifted her eyebrows, only a bit. He inclined his chin. That was no answer, and once again, he turned to Tyrion.

"I'm surprised to see you have returned so soon."

"The Wall was a sight, but I'm afraid my sister and I are accustomed to quite a different lifestyle than the brave brothers of the Night's Watch," said Tyrion airily. "We were very much looking forward to seeing Winterfell again. Though I must say we received a slightly warmer welcome on our last visit."

Robb straightened in his seat. "Any man of the Night's Watch is welcome at Winterfell."

Caree exhaled sharply, and Tyrion said, in a voice just as cutting, "Any man of the Night's Watch, but not I, and not my sweet sister – eh, boy?"

Robb's voice dropped an octave. "I'm not your boy, Lannister." Next to him, Maester Luwin rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm Lord of Winterfell while my father is away."

"Then you might learn a lord's courtesy." Caree felt dizzy. She had anticipated an awkward greeting, a difficult greeting, but not in this way. This was nonsensical. As she had reminded Tyrion, the Starks had never liked the Lannisters, but as _he _had reminded her, Caree had been the exception. And even if that were not the case, treating them this way after they had been guests only the month before – it was absurd. She scoured Robb's face for answers. What had happened? What had changed? _Will you stop at Winterfell on your way back to King's Landing? _he had asked. _You would be welcome if you did . . ._

A door groaned. Caree whipped around, her muscles tight, but what she saw nearly melted her. It was Bran, in the arms of the huge, dim-witted stable boy Hodor. The boy's legs were limp; his face was only slightly more animated. Theon Greyjoy followed the pair in, a challenge on his face.

"So it's true," Tyrion whispered.

Yoren stepped out of the way to clear a path for Hodor, but before the man and his charge could reach the table, Caree said, "Hello, Bran."

Hodor stopped; Bran gazed at Caree as if she were a stranger.

"I was very pleased to hear you had woken," she said. Bran only blinked.

Tyrion stepped forward. "Do you remember anything about what happened, Bran?"

"He has no memory of that day," said Maester Luwin.

Tyrion studied the boy. "Curious."

"Why are you here?" Robb demanded, and Caree swung her head around, her emotions grappling with one another and creating an ache she had to relieve. Enough was enough.

"Have we done something to offend you?" she snapped. "_Lord_ Stark?"

There was a moment, small and precious, in which the Robb she knew sat in that high seat, looking young and unsure. But he disappeared as quickly as he had come, the moment died, and Robb the Lord returned as hard as ever. "I will not let travelers into Winterfell without knowledge of their intentions."

"We intend to sleep. Bathe. Eat . . . If your family's hospitality extends so far."

Robb bristled. "You know better than anyone how far my family's hospitality extends," he said in a near-whisper. "My lady."

Caree laughed. "Gods be good, your father goes away and suddenly –"

Robb started to stand. "My _father_ –"

Maester Luwin put a hand on Robb's arm just as his direwolf shot to its feet, snarling, muscles set to spring and the youngest Lannister well in range.

Caree took a breath, watching the animal, but with her exhale she forced her eyes up to Robb. She would not show fear. Robb's face was red, but he did not blink. Neither did Caree. "Down, Grey Wind," Robb ordered.

The direwolf's lips closed. It spun in a tight circle and lay down again, but shifted fitfully, watching the guests the way only a predator watches prey.

"Forgive my sister," Tyrion said as the wolf rested its head on its paws, "As I'm sure you've noticed, she can forget herself." He turned to Bran before Caree could say anything more. "Would your charming companion be so kind as to kneel? My neck is beginning to hurt."

"Kneel, Hodor," Bran said, apathetic. The stable boy obeyed, his mouth hanging open, watching something no one else could see.

"Caree tells me you like to ride," Tyrion said to the boy. "Is that true?"

"Yes," Bran answered. "Well, I mean, I _did_ like to."

"The boy has lost the use of his legs," interjected the maester.

Tyrion was dismissive. "What of it? With the right horse and saddle, even a cripple can ride."

"I'm not a cripple," Bran said.

"Then I'm not a dwarf! My father will rejoice to hear it."

"Tyrion, you forget yourself," muttered Caree.

"Bran, I have a gift for you." Tyrion pulled a long scroll from the inside of his cloak and handed it to the boy. "Give that to your saddler. He'll provide the rest." Bran ripped the seal, unrolled the parchment, and studied the drawings Caree had already seen – marvelously detailed designs that proved to her beyond a doubt that her brother was by far more valuable to their family than she, whatever her father's preferences. "You must shape the horse to the rider," Tyrion told the maester. "Start with a yearling. Teach it to respond to the reins and to the boy's voice."

"Will I really be able to ride?" Bran asked quietly. Hopefully. It was a good sound.

"You will." Tyrion offered a small smile. "On horseback, you'll be as tall as any of them."

"Is this some kind of trick?" asked Robb the Lord. "Why do you want to help him?"

"I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things," Tyrion replied, and Caree could hear his annoyance as easy as any of his words and wondered if it was as palpable to the others in the room. She hoped so. If they would not pay attention to her, perhaps they would to Tyrion.

_The Imp? Not likely._

But, after a brief silence, Robb said, "You have done my brother a kindness. The hospitality of Winterfell is yours."

Caree gave a tiny shake of her head. Robb could not sound more begrudging if he tried. "Spare us your false courtesies," she said, and to her horror, she found she had to speak past a swelling throat.

"Spare _me _your false courtesies," Tyrion corrected. Caree gave him a look she hoped cut like a dagger. He seemed unperturbed, however, as he waved in her direction. "Save them all for my sister here. There's a brothel outside of your walls, _Lord_ Stark. There I'll find a bed. Both of us can sleep easier."

"Tyrion –" Caree hissed.

"Jyck, stay with her." Tyrion was already on his way out, Morrec close behind him. Caree watched them go, her rage mingling with desperation. Slowly, she turned back to the table. Robb had no problem looking at her now.

"Would the bedchamber you had during your last stay suit you?" he asked thickly.

Caree wanted to yell at him. To grab his shoulders and shake him and demand he rip off this Lord of Winterfell mask and speak to her with the raw honesty that had come so easily to him in the godswood. For the past fortnight of riding, she had dreaded that honesty, but now she thirsted for it more than she ever had any wine.

"Yes," she said, restraining herself like the proper lady she was supposed to be. "That would do splendidly."

"Marc," Robb said, and one of the guards flanking the table stepped forward. "Escort Lady Caree to the Guest House."

"I remember the way," Caree said. "If my lord trusts me alone in his hallowed halls."

She doubted she imagined Robb's hands clenching the arms of his chair. She was completely certain he tightened his jaw. _Good._ Let him be furious, let him be offended. She was a Lannister, after all. It was only natural.

"Go on, then," he finally said, almost inaudibly.

Caree made it out of the room before a sob broke from her. She pressed a palm over her mouth, loathing herself, and shoved Jyck's hand away when he touched her shoulder. Wiping the single tear that had rolled from her eye, she gulped three times and strode away from the hall, thinking that _welcome _did not mean what it used to.


	13. Chapter 13

Once again, Caree's bedchamber had no wine, which infuriated an already angry soul. She refused to venture from her bedchamber in search of it. No, she would stay locked away until morning, when she could to ride away from Winterfell and its inhabitants forever. She could hardly wait.

She could not stop trembling.

A maid came in to help her bathe, but Caree sent her away after and sat in a chair in front of the mirror, brushing her hair until it dried. The process was long, but the monotony of it soothed her. She stared at the reflection of a pretty girl as she worked. Rosy cheeks, bright eyes, plump lips. A pretty girl, a pretty _lady_, should have no trouble marrying a lord and becoming matriarch of a respectable family. Oh, how the gods loved irony.

A different maid came in to offer dinner, but Caree declined. Her appetite, so potent before her arrival at Winterfell, had fled from her, and she only wanted sleep. She was about to strip off her gown and climb into bed when there was a knock on the door.

"Yes?"

And, after a moment, "It's Robb."

The cool fog inside of Caree twisted in on itself. Rage crept in. She went to the door and pulled it open halfway, supporting herself against the wall, blocking any chance of Robb's entering. He stood there in his cloak, his direwolf nowhere to be seen. Caree greeted the Lord of Winterfell with nothing more than a blank expression.

"Would you walk with me?" he asked quietly.

"Am I allowed out of my bedchamber, my lord?"

Robb gave her a look that was half disgust, half plead. "Don't."

She remained where she was for a moment, considering refusal, but her curiosity overcame her disinclination to be around him and she returned into the room to grab her own cloak. She fastened it on as she followed Robb away from her bedchamber, leaving Jyck behind with one of the Stark household guards, who, thankfully, was not Ren Balter.

Out in the courtyard, a crisp wind licked at Caree and she held her head high against it. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"I'm not going with you to the godswood."

A cloud of mist puffed from his mouth, catching a glow from the moon. "I'm not taking you to the godswood."

They walked in silence, through the courtyard, out onto a span of grass, the castle towers stretching above them. Robb finally stopped under one. The Broken Tower. "This is where he fell."

Caree studied the spot, wondering who had found the boy. It must have been a terrible sight. She hoped it had not been one a member of his family had to behold. "Why are we here?"

Robb took a moment before answering, his tongue evidently unwilling. "My mother does not think what happened to my brother was an accident," he said in a rush.

Understanding fell over Caree, a blanket that was not usually so heavy. "She thinks someone wanted him to fall?"

"She thinks someone pushed him." He met her eyes, started to speak, stopped, then started again and said, "Someone who was a guest at our house during the King's visit."

They stared at each other.

"And you think," Caree said slowly, "that I had something to do with it?"

"No," he replied immediately, genuinely, even _kindly._

Caree did not give a damn how kind he was. She fought to keep her voice down. "Tyrion, then? You must think it was him or me, otherwise you would not have dealt with us like we were prisoners of war upon our arrival!"

"Caree, I don't know who it was! I only know it wasn't you, that's all I'm trying to say!"

"It wasn't my brother, either!"

Robb looked almost sad. More than anything, though, he looked tired. "I hope you are right."

Caree's palms were clammy, her mind racing. Something about this was wrong. If the Starks believed that Bran's accident might not have been accidental at all, and that it could have been the doing of anyone who had stayed with them . . .

But of course they didn't.

"You would not have treated us as you did if all you suspected was that the fault might lie with anyone in the King's party. There would be a sea of people to consider if you had just that to go on – to single out a pair would be illogical." She did not have to struggle to speak normally now. There was an odd sort of calm inside of her. "Either you suspect Tyrion for some reason you are not telling me, or you suspect my entire family."

His silence was his answer.

Her calm broke as quickly as it had come, as false calms do, and from her mouth escaped a hiss. "How _dare_ you?"

"Your family is not like you, Caree –"

"I _am _my family!" she shouted, her voice ringing to the skies, Robb flinching as the words lashed out at him. Her teeth were bared, she was dimly aware that she was being almost animalistic, but she could not regain control before spitting out, "It is the only one I will ever have, it is _all I will ever be_._" _

She stole a breath then, burned out by wrath and left empty and helpless, desperate to transfer her faith in her family to Robb, if only for a moment, just a moment would be long enough. "Not one of my siblings," she began, back to monitoring herself, "has any reason to harm Bran. And even if they did, they wouldn't. Tyrion is no killer. Cersei can be cold, gods know she can be cold, but she knows what it is to lose a child and she would not condemn any mother to that. And Jaime –" Speaking her eldest brother's name reignited a bit of her former fervour – "Jaime is a _knight_, a member of the _Kingsguard_. He would never, _never, _harm an innocent child, especially not one he knows I care for." She ran her tongue around her mouth. It had gone much too dry. "You imagine you know them," she finished. "You do not."

Robb had listened well to all of this, nodding, never trying to interrupt. His response was equally as cordial as his actions. "Or maybe _you_ do not," he told her softly. "Maybe love blinds you."

She whirled away, pressing a hand to her forehead, sick to her heart and stomach and losing, with those words, all hope that he and she might part friends. The situation had become more complicated than she had ever imagined it could. "Why would you tell me of your suspicions?" she asked, hating him for depriving her of ignorance, for not simply letting her be furious with him and then sad over him until enough years passed and she forgot the day, the feelings, the betrayal, the betrothal. Him.

"Because I trust you," Robb said. "Because tomorrow you will leave, and we will not see one another for a long time, and I did not want you to believe I thought ill of you."

_It would be much easier for both of us if I believed that, Robb. _

She turned back to him, her heart full of too many things and her blood moving too swiftly for her to understand precisely how she felt. She only knew it hurt.

Robb was stoic, very handsome, very forlorn. "I've never thought ill of you," he said wearily. "I never will."

She did not answer right away. She let the crisp air cool her inside and out, let her breathing slow. Then, "Perhaps you should."

Because he did not understand, truly, he did not understand anything about who she was. Or how she should be thought of.

"I won't," Robb said simply. Somewhere, a wolf began to howl, and was soon joined by another, and another still. At least one of those wolves apparently wanted Caree dead, and yet she found she liked the music they made as a pack, such a mournful tune that resonated inside of her, in the fog, in the fire.

"You could stay," said Robb. "You say your family is the only one you will ever have. It doesn't have to be."

Caree listened to the wolves howl, and she said, "I will not marry you, Robb Stark."

"I know. But understand I want you to."

The ground blurred beneath their feet. "If you only knew me, really. As well as you believe you know my family."

She turned away again, this time to leave. She was six or seven paces away when she heard, "This will likely be the last moment we have alone together!"

She halted.

". . . Is this really how you want to say goodbye?"

He was restraining himself, Caree could hear it, but from what exactly, she did not know. "No, Robb," she called back, staring at the unmarked path that would take her away from him. "It's not."

She went on her way.


	14. Chapter 14

When she came to him that night, with a soft knock and sad eyes, Robb found that he could not be surprised to see her. It hurt to see her, so beautiful and temporary, but he did not ask her to leave.

"This is how I want to say goodbye," she whispered, and they were together, lips, hands, bodies.

"You said you did not have the right feelings –" Robb murmured, feebly, as their breathing grew heavy, as they backed into the room, as they groped at everything they could touch. She kissed him some more, and hers were the fiercest kisses he had ever had, starving, greedy.

Pushing her forehead to his, she breathed, "These feelings are not right," before biting his neck.

They fell on the bed, pulling off clothes, their own, each other's. There were no boundaries, they owned one another, two halves of something broken, desperate to seal back together.

Robb Stark knew, before, during, that it did not mean what he wanted it to mean. She had as much as said it. In the morning, she would leave, become lost to him, and this knowledge broke his heart. This was the second time in his life his heart had been broken, and the culprit in both instances was in his bed, and he wanted her. More than anything in the world, he wanted Caree Lannister.

So he had her, if only for a night. It was not like it had been four years ago. This was between a woman and a man, this was passionate, this was everything, and he loved her. She cried his name, he felt tears on her skin and his skin, and he loved her.

After, he breathed in her scent, held her close, stroked her hair. He did not want to forget. He fell asleep memorizing her.

He woke up in a cold bed, the morning sun doing nothing to warm it or him. He was alone. Once again, even if he had wanted to, he could not be surprised.

A golden hairpin had taken Caree's place, taunting him with its cheerful gleam. He picked it up and rubbed it between his fingers. The surface was rough with engravings of lions, baring their teeth.


	15. Chapter 15

She would not linger in the halls of Winterfell. No, Caree would not give nostalgia such an opportunity. Although, as she left the bedchamber she had not slept in, she was much too numb to feel anything. Even sorrow. It was the morning's only blessing.

Jyck had not been at her door upon her return at dawn, and she found him where she would have expected, out in the courtyard, holding both of their saddled horses. Caree touched Willow's muzzle as Jyck tied her bag onto the animal. "Thank you, Jyck," she murmured.

"Of course, m'lady." The guard paused. He was a young man, Jaime's age, but he had drifted on the edges of Caree's world since she had been a child. Even after she had become a woman, he had never looked at Caree with any sort of desire in his eyes. Kindness, but never desire. Caree appreciated him for that, although she was not quite sure why. "M'lady . . ." he began now, cautious.

"Please don't, Jyck."

The guard closed his mouth, nodded, and stepped to his horse.

The maester appeared to send them off, his face warmer than it had been yesterday. He did not suspect Caree, then, only Tyrion. A Lannister was a Lannister, but Caree could not help but feel a certain secret gratitude towards the Stark household for its evident view of her innocence. "My lady," the Maester said, ducking his head. "I wish you a safe journey. And a safe life after that."

Caree studied the old man. The distance between them was a strange thing. During her time at Winterfell, Caree had grown close to the other children most of all, but she had formed bonds with the adults as well. This very maester had given her almost daily lessons for a year of her life; she had once, without any thought of humiliation, allowed him to examine the most secret part of her body. And now they stood three paces apart, with him wishing her a safe life.

"Thank you, Maester Luwin," she said. "I wish you all the good fortune in the world." A thought captured her. "Please tell Bran . . ." She swallowed. "Please tell him goodbye, and that life goes on. Even after all you've wanted has been taken away."

The maester sighed, and a stroke of sad affection slipped into his eyes. "Of course, my lady."

Caree nodded and turned to Willow, only to hear, "And to Lord Robb, my lady? Is there anything you would like me to relay to him?"

Caree reached a hand around and ran it down her braid, to the plain ribbon holding the end together. "Robb and I have already said our goodbyes."

Pounding hooves announced an arrival. Tyrion and Morrec came galloping in, both looking much more energetic – and happier – than Caree felt. "Little sister," Tyrion called, trotting up to her. "How well rested you look."

"The rest of our journey will go by much more smoothly if you refrain from speaking to me," Caree told him.

Her brother only gave her the most infuriating look of condescension she had ever seen. "Sweet silly girl, if you're hoping I shall apologize for forbidding my baby sister from spending the night in a brothel, you are nearly as mistaken as you are naïve."

"Mistaken I might be, but naïve I am not, and you could never _forbid _me from doing anything, _Imp!"_

She had spat out the name before she could think it, and the hurt was evident in Tyrion's eyes. His voice, however, hid it well. "And yet, when I said you would sleep here, you did not disobey. Either I can, in fact, forbid you, or there was something else keeping you here. Hm." He pulled at his horse's reins. "Come. There's an inn we should be able to make by sundown."

The numbness overtook Caree again, drowning her anger, and she allowed Jyck to help her onto Willow. But as she settled into the saddle, she noticed another person had appeared beside Maester Luwin, and of course it was Robb.

He stepped up to her horse. There were dark bags under his eyes, bags that Caree was sure matched her own. "My lady," he said.

_My lord. _The words gathered on Caree's tongue but could not fall from it. In his eyes, so lovely and comforting, she saw last night again, when they had been hers as much as his, when every part of him was hers, and vice versa. And now the two of them could not be more separate.

"I wish you . . ." Robb began, but he did not finish.

His hesitation nudged away Caree's. "I wish you the same," she whispered.

Robb's hand came up. Her golden hairpin shined from his black glove. "I found this. I believe it's yours."

Caree stared at the piece, a nameday gift from her father, the only one of its kind in the world. Robb Stark would never see another one to match. "Keep it," she said, praying that he would not deny her.

He did not. He closed his hand around the pin, guarding it with a fist. "You will always be my friend, Caree." He spoke low, perhaps too low for the others to hear.

Caree tore her gaze from him, to the sky, much too blue and beautiful. She had dishonored him, insulted him, sneaked from his bedchamber like a thief, and yet he called her friend. "And you," she said, with a hint of laughter in her chest, pressing out the tears, "will always be the most wonderful sort of fool." She let her eyes drop to him once last time. "Farewell, Robb Stark. May the gods give you all you deserve –" She cut herself off, grinding her heels into Willow's sides, sending the horse bounding forward, past her party and out the gates, flying from her third – and in many ways, best – home, flying from the one man she had ever made love to, flying from the part of herself that she loved most of all, the part that could never come to the light again, the part that had to die among wolves. That part was weak, prone to long goodbyes and tears, tears that dried now, and she could not afford weakness. She could not afford tears. Her braid flew back behind her, and as she raced down the kingsroad, she felt it begin to come undone. The ribbon had fallen away.

**. . . . .**

**. . . . .**

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**A.N.: This is the last time Caree and Robb will be together for a while (or forever). Thoughts on their relationship, overall?**


	16. Chapter 16

The following days were not pleasant ones.

Brother and sister rode farther south and closer to home each day, and yet even as the air warmed, their relationship stayed as cold as the North. In Caree's head, it was all quite simple. Tyrion had insisted they stay with the Starks, and then he did not, in fact, stay with the Starks. Instead, he had left Caree alone there. And then she had bedded Robb Stark. And now that terrible, drunken idea of hers had turned into a horrendously painful memory, clinging to her stomach and heart and laughing at her, promising to stain.

She had convinced herself that one last night with Robb would be a proper closing to their relationship. She had been wrong. It was a wonderful night, certainly. But all the mornings since then had been awful, empty of Robb, empty of joy. Of hope.

It was Tyrion's fault. It had to be his fault, because if not, she was the one to blame. And she could not shoulder that. Not out on the road, travelling from inn to inn, never anywhere stable and always, always alone. Maybe she could face it back at King's Landing, where she was comfortable, where she was surrounded by people and things she knew. Her bedchamber, with its heavy doors and balcony that let her pretend to be a bird. The rookery. The gardens. Jaime. God, she missed Jaime. He was the brother who could make her feel alright. Not Tyrion. Not _the Imp._

The Imp. She should not have called him that.

But she was not about to apologize.

On one particular evening, they stopped at an inn along the Kingsroad that looked exactly like all the other inns along the Kingsroad. Caree dismounted from Willow without waiting for help from Jyck or Morrec. She had essentially ignored them since leaving Winterfell. She was fully aware of what an absolute bitch she was being, and she simply could not care less.

"Another lovely night in another lovely place! Isn't it _lovely_, darling sister?"

The worst part of the journey since Winterfell had been Tyrion's complete refusal to acknowledge her fury with him. He was smart enough to notice it and understand the reasons behind it, but if anything, it only seemed to amuse him. Caree gave him yet another cold stare as his feet touched ground. He gave her a cheerful smile before leading the way into the inn. Caree followed, of course, dragging her feet, and Yoren and Jyck came behind her, leaving Morrec to tend to their mounts.

Tyrion pushed open the door, which gave an obnoxious wail_. _Three steps later, Caree found herself in a dim room filled with the odor produced by the separate aromas of cooking meat, ale, sweat, and piss all blending together like an unseen soup.

Gods, she hated inns.

A dirty, pudgy woman swooped down on them within moments, a stained apron on her waist, worry in her eyes. "Sorry, my lord," she said quickly to Tyrion, wringing her hands. Tyrion's clothes must have given them away. Or perhaps his demeanor. Or perhaps the appearance of Caree, who was not only well-dressed but unable to look anything but the staunch noblewomen during her moments of unhappiness. Jaime had once told her it was the only time he ever saw a resemblance between her and Cersei.

The woman continued, so very apologetic, "Full up. Every room."

"Our men can sleep in the stables," Tyrion said.

"And your plans for you and me?" Caree asked as flatly as she could while still speaking loud enough to be heard over the bustle of the room before them, filled with tables and men, some of whom stared, most of whom did not care. "I'm _not_ sharing a room with you."

"Correction, my dear – _I'm_ not sharing a room with _you_." Tyrion strolled deeper into the room, gazing around as if for a hidden secret.

The woman followed him. "Truly, my lord," she insisted. "We have nothing."

Tyrion procured something shiny, seemingly out of thin air; it was a magic trick the children of Tywin Lannister were capable of performing at birth. "Is there nothing I can do," he said to the room as his steps took him to the center of it – he paused only to bang his gift on a table so there could be no doubt of his offer – "To remedy this?"

"You can have my room."

Caree's eyes found the man who had spoken. He sat at one of the tables nearest to Tyrion. He wore black, beaten armor that matched his hair and beard, as well as a sword, an impressive enough sword, as far as Caree could tell. He was at least Jaime's age, probably older, but he might owe the extra wrinkles and grey specks of hair not to passing years, but to his profession, which Caree guessed in an instant. She knew a sellsword when she saw one. She had bedded a few, and they all had had the same unkept appearance and a perpetual darkness in their eyes. And a selfishness under the sheets, which actually made them quite fun.

"Now there's a clever man," Tyrion commended, flipping the coin to the sellsword, who snapped it out of the air with ease. Caree's brother turned again to the woman working the inn. "You can manage food, I trust? Yoren, dine with me. Caree, I would be honored if you would join us. You may refuse now."

The words were on Caree's tongue when she was cut off by an all-too happy yell. A man had sprung up from a table and was suddenly by her side, in a move so fast that she involuntarily took a step back. She then took a second, voluntary one when she saw the harp in his hand.

"My Lady Lannister!" The man boomed. He was more of a boy, really, dressed in cheap but brightly-dyed clothes and sporting a grin that reminded her of Ren Balter. "Might I entertain you while you eat?"

"No." Her eyes left him, an obvious enough signal, and one he ignored.

"I can sing of your father's victory at King's Landing!"

"Thank you, but I'm already well-acquainted with the story." That's when her wandering eyes caught something. A lovely scarf, wrapped over a head of deep, nearly-brown red hair, atop a body sitting at a table just steps from where Tyrion stood. She moved closer to her brother, past the singer, until she saw clearly enough to confirm what her thudding heart had already begun to fear.

"Lady Stark?"

It took a moment, a long one, before the woman turned and revealed her fair face. The face of a fine noblewoman.

Robb's words rang in her ears, so loud she wanted to cover them: _My mother does not think what happened to my brother was an accident._

And Lady Catelyn Stark's eyes, carved from stone, told her that Robb had spoken the absolute truth.

"Lady Stark!" Tyrion said, turning Caree's question into a most gracious statement, even as a pit developed in his sister's stomach. "What an unexpected pleasure!"

_She thinks someone pushed him. Someone who was a guest at our house during the King's visit._

Lady Stark pulled her gaze from Caree like weeds from soil and planted them into Tyrion.

_Your family is not like you, Caree._

Tyrion, usually so observant, did not seem to notice Lady Stark's chilling demeanor. Her stone eyes. But then, he did not know what Caree knew. "I was sorry to have missed you at Winterfell," Tyrion said.

Across the table from Lady Stark sat Ser Rodrick, the Stark family master-at-arms. An old knight, but well-experienced, and as loyal as a man could be. A man who would die for Lady Stark as soon as he would blink.

"Lady Stark," came a voice from behind them, a voice filled with reverence. The woman working the inn. Caree looked over her shoulder to see her perform an awkward curtsy. Now? So Lady Stark had hidden her identity upon her arrival. Why?

The Lady rose. She pulled the scarf from her head, revealing herself to the inn, and even the most uneducated in the room could not doubt this woman's power.

Caree gripped Tyrion's shoulder as utter certainty flooded her: They were in danger and they needed to leave. To flee.

But they did not. Because Tyrion did not know Lady Stark, any more than he knew the dark secret Robb had revealed to Caree that night under the Broken Tower. The secret she had kept all this time, out of resentment, out of a need to hold something of Robb's as her own. But she and her brother both might now have to pay for a crime neither had committed, and Tyrion had not the slightest hint of what could be coming.

Lady Stark began to speak.

"I was still Catelyn Tully the last time I stayed here," she announced to the inn and all its patrons. Somewhere in the distance, a horse nickered, and Lady Stark gestured to one of the men. "You, Ser."

The man stood. Lady Stark moved toward him, the perfect image of grace. Ser Rodrick stood with her and shadowed her steps. "Is that the black bat of Harrenhal I see embroidered on your coat?" Lady Stark asked.

"It is, m'lady."

"And is Lady Whent a true and honest friend to my father, Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrrun?"

"She is."

With that, Lady Stark searched out a new face. She found one and said, "The red stallion was always a welcome sight at Riverrun."

A second man, on the other side of the room from the last, rose to his feet, looking rather uncomfortable.

"My father counts Jonos Bracken as one of his oldest and most loyal bannermen."

"My lord is honored by his trust," answered the knight.

Caree noticed that Ser Rodrick had his hand on his sword. Somehow, seeing that Jyck did as well was little comfort. He was skilled enough. But he was no Ser Rodrick.

Tyrion spoke up. "I envy your father all his fine friends, Lady Stark, but I don't quite see the purpose of this." His eyes connected with Caree's. She did not know what her eyes said, she did not know what she could _make _them say, but whatever Tyrion got from them clearly gave him no comfort.

Lady Stark did not reply to the youngest Lannister son, only spun from him and chose out yet another man, who also stood, back erect, eyes eager. "I know your sigil as well," she said. "The twin towers of Frey. How fares your lord, Ser?"

"Lord Walder is well, m'lady. He's asked your father for the honor of his presence on his ninetieth nameday. Plans to take another wife."

Tyrion grunted a noise borne either from disgust, pity, admiration, or a blend of all three. Feigning calm. Caree knew it was feigned, because her brother was no fool. That title, she felt at this moment, belonged completely to her.

And now, Lady Stark stepped up to Tyrion. She pointed at him. Her hand shook but her face remained hard. "This man," she began, "Came into my house as a guest. And there conspired to murder my son. A boy of ten."

The room was deadly still and yet Caree felt as if she were spinning. Tyrion? Of her three siblings, why had Lady Stark chosen out Tyrion as the perpetrator? The Imp, the ugly, stunted Lannister everyone would rather forget about?

Tyrion would never have done such a thing. Never. He had no motive. He did not have the heart.

_And, _a small voice inside of Caree whispered, _He's too smart to be caught._

"In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve," continued Lady Stark, her voice trembling but somehow still mighty, "I call upon you to seize him, and help me return him to Winterfell, to await the king's justice."

The slick sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath was far from unfamiliar to Caree. She almost liked the sound, under certain circumstances, the more morbid part of her appreciating the oddly musical quality of the action contrasting and yet complementing its dark associations. But she could not recall hearing a dozen swords and sheaths singing as a group. She had most definitely never been the subject of their song.

And she had yet to be, even now. For the dozen swords – perhaps more – now pointed at her were not pointed at her at all, but at her brother. Caree was with him, however. And she had the uneasy feeling that was not about to change.


End file.
